Precautionary practices towards COVID-19 among pregnant women attending antenatal care in Nepal: A cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION COVID-19 has placed excess stress on the antenatal health care system and added additional complexity to expecting mothers. This study aimed to study the attitude and precautionary practices of non-infected pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal. METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out interviewing all 195 pregnant women attending an antenatal care outpatient department in Nepal, between 15 March and 16 April 2021, using a pretested questionnaire. Precautionary practices were defined as the practice of social distancing, wearing masks, and sanitizing or washing hands, by the mothers during the antenatal period with a 5-point Likert scale for each item Precautionary practices were categorized into good (≥ median score) and poor(< median score). RESULTS The majority of the women who participated in this study were from aged 20–29 years (71.7%), were Brahmin (48.2%) and 84.6% Hindu. Since 46.2% of women assumed the close contact of mother to child as safe practice with specific precautions, only 17.9% were willing to isolate themselves if infected by COVID-19. Overall, 35.9% of the respondents were only willing to breastfeed their newborn, even with specific precaution if infected. Nearly half of the respondents (47.2%) had poor precautionary practice during the COVID-19 pandemic and the level of precautionary practices was found significantly associated with age and occupational status. CONCLUSIONS Most of the respondents were concerned about the threats of mother to child transmission but found to have poor precautionary practices towards COVID-19. Thus, adequate counselling regarding COVID related issues during an antenatal checkup is required to be provided by health workers to break their perceived stigma for better maternal and neonatal outcomes © 2022 Thapa T. et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License. (http//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0)