Sodium fluoride, Er:YAG laser, enamel & caries.

Gerezgiher Buruh Abera*, Hailemariam Berhe and Haftom G/ Hiwet

ABSTRACT

Background: A newborn care practice is a care given immediately after delivery to the newborn. A newborn care practice includes activities like cord care, eye care, hygienic practice at delivery, temperature maintenance and immediate feeding. Despite the different interventions, neonatal mortality is still prevalent in Ethiopia. Objectives: To assess home based newborn care practices in Mereb leke district, central zone of Tigray. Methods: community based cross sectional study using quantitative method was conducted on the assessment of home based newborn care practices from October 2012 to March 2013. 422 mothers who give birth within the last one year were included. The data were collected using interviewer administered structured questionnaire. Data were entered, cleaned and analyzed using SPSS Version 16.0 statistical software package. Result- Among the study participants, half of them delivered at home, and 99.1% of them used a New/boiled razor blade in cutting the umbilical cord. However, poor cord care was driven mainly by putting substances on the cord. Only 18.3% bathed their babies after 24 hours and 18.7% initiated Breastfeeding after one hour. Conclusion and recommendation: Significant participants explained that they used prelacteal feeding other than breast feeding, and even exclusive breast feeding is 58.8%. According to the result, most of the mothers used new or boiled blade to cut the cord, but yet others used old unboiled blade. Health education opportunities for the mothers is good on the materials used for cutting the cord, disinfectants used immediately after cord cut, prelacteal feeding, the importance of colostrums and time of BF initiation.

Keywords: Newborn, newborn care practice.