Does Postnatal Care Have a Role in Improving Newborn Feeding? A Study in 15 Sub-Saharan African Countries

Citation

Khan, Shane M.; Speizer, Ilene S.; Singh, Kavita; Angeles, Gustavo; Twum-Danso, Nana A. Y.; & Barker, Pierre M. (2017). Does Postnatal Care Have a Role in Improving Newborn Feeding? A Study in 15 Sub-Saharan African Countries. Journal of Global Health, 7(2), 020506. PMCID: PMC5785869

Abstract

Background: Breastfeeding is known as a key intervention to improve newborn health and survival while prelacteal feeds (liquids other than breastmilk within 3 days of birth) represents a departure from optimal feeding practices. Recent programmatic guidelines from the WHO and UNICEF outline the need to improve newborn feeding and points to postnatal care (PNC) as a potential mechanism to do so. This study examines if PNC and type of PNC provider are associated with key newborn feeding practices: breastfeeding within 1 day and prelacteal feeds. Methods: We use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys for 15 sub-Saharan African countries to estimate 4 separate pooled, multilevel, logistic regression models to predict the newborn feeding outcomes. Findings: PNC is significantly associated with increased breastfeeding within 1day (OR = 1.35, P < 0.001) but is not associated with PLFs (OR = 1.04, P = 0.195). PNC provided by nurses, midwives and untrained health workers is also associated with higher odds of breastfeeding within 1 day of birth (OR = 1.39, P < 0.001, (OR = 1.95, P < 0.001) while PNC provided by untrained health workers is associated with increased odds of PLFs (OR = 1.20, P = 0.017). Conclusions: PNC delivered through customary care may be an effective strategy to improve the breastfeeding within 1 day but not to discourage PLFs. Further analysis should be done to examine how these variables operate at the country level to produce finer programmatic insight.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.7189/jogh.07.020506

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2017

Journal Title

Journal of Global Health

Author(s)

Khan, Shane M.
Speizer, Ilene S.
Singh, Kavita
Angeles, Gustavo
Twum-Danso, Nana A. Y.
Barker, Pierre M.

PMCID

PMC5785869

ORCiD

Speizer - 0000-0001-6204-1316
Angeles - 0000-0003-4598-152X
Singh, K - 0000-0001-8670-2262