Utilization of Mother and Child Booklet among Mothers Attending Well Baby Clinic in Nakuru Central District

Background The mother and child health (MCH) booklet is an essential integrated document formulated by the Ministry of Health that provides for linkage of services across the continuum of maternal and neonatal care. The booklet has a provision for recording all the interventions for the mother during pregnancy, delivery and postnatal period. It also captures information on infant care from birth to five years of age. Methods A cross sectional descriptive study that sought to determine the utilization of MCH booklet by mothers attending the well baby clinic in Nakuru central district was done. Purposive sampling of health care facilities that provide antenatal, delivery and postnatal services in Nakuru central district to include government, faith based and privately run facilities in Tier 2, 3 and 4 of health care, was done. Postnatal mothers attending well baby clinic were selected from the facilities at random for interview using the structured questionnaires. Results A total of 499 mothers with children aged less than one year attending the well baby clinics were interviewed using structured questionnaires to determine availability and utilization of mother and child booklets. Data was processed using the SPSS software (version 20). Upto 99.6 % of the mothers had attended Antenatal clinic (ANC) and 98.6 % of them had been given the standard MCH booklet. However, only 59 % of them were explained the contents of the book by the health care providers and up to 33.5 % of the mothers did not read the instructions in the MCH booklet. Conclusion On the overall the utilization of the MCH booklet was found to be insufficient by the mothers attending well baby clinic Nakuru central district. There is need to emphasis the importance of the MCH booklet and encourage its utilization by the mothers during antenatal clinics