Effectiveness of Essential Newborn Care Bundle (ENCB) on Knowledge and Practice Regarding Essential New Born Care among Primiparous Mothers

Background: Neonatal period is the most vulnerable period for the child’s survival. Globally, 2.5 million infants died in the first month of their life in 2017 alone, approximately 7000 neonatal deaths occur every day, most of which occurred in the first week, with about 1 million dying on the first day.1Knowledge of the primiparous mothers about the essential newborn care can make a difference. Material and method: A quasi experimental study, non-equivalent post- test only control group design was conducted among 80 antenatal mothers selected by purposive sampling technique. The study group (n=40) was subjected to demonstration and health education on essential newborn care bundle (ENCB). A self-prepared and content validated structured questionnaire (for knowledge) and checklist (for practice) was used 72 hrs after the delivery for data collection. Both groups were compared for the knowledge and practice for ENCB. Results: The knowledge scores of the study group mothers were higher (20.8±3.3) than controls (15.5±3.8).15 % of control group mothers scored good, 82.5 % - average, and 2.5 % scored poor in knowledge domain of ENCB. However among study group, 62.5 % scored- good, 35 % - average and 2.5 % scored poor. The difference was statistically significant (pless than0.001). Practice score were also higher in study group mothers (18.5±4.36) as compared to controls (15.08±2.63). Among the control group, 5 %, 85.0 % and 10 % of mothers had good, average and poor practice score respectively. But in study group, 25 % had good practice, 70 % had average and 5.0 % had poor practice. This shows significant difference in practice too (pless than0.001). Conclusion: ENCB was found to be effective in improving the knowledge and practice of primiparous mothers for caring their neonates. Integration of this in antenatal visit counseling of mothers will help in decreasing the neonatal mortality.