Home Care Needs of Parturient Women and Neonates-Retrospective Study

Park, Soon Bok; Choi, Yun Soon; Park, So Mi; Park, Jeong Sook; Kim, Eun Sook

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand home care needs for parturient women and neonates up to the postpartum period. MEHTODS: The design of this study is a cross-sectional survey study. The subjects of this study are 88 postpartum mothers who delivered a first baby during the period from December 1996 to July 1997. Data collection was done with a structured questionnaire by mailing. Data were collected at the point of six months after delivery. A structured questionnaire composed of items related to home care needs. Data analysis was done with descriptive statistics. The study results are as follows: 1) The highest need was personal hygiene(93.2%) for the parturient women, and the peak period was the two week period after delivery. 2) The most frequent maternal needs regarding neonates were cord care(72.4%) during the first week, elimination(67.9%) during the first two weeks, baby crying(88.3%) and sleeping pattern(71.5%) at one month after delivery, and baby temperament(30.4%) at sixth months after delivery. 3)The mothers requested home care methods such as written material for self health care(35%) and counseling(34%) and direct home visits(5%) for neonate care. CONCLUSION: The most important period for home health care needs was one week after delivery, and the health care needs for neonate temperament, behavior and sleeping pattern rose rapidly at the period of 6 months after delivery. Therefore it could be concluded that the postpartum home care should be done by those, written material should be enhanced for parturient women care, and counseling enhanced for neonate care.