Husband Involvement in Safe Motherhood Services among Married Women of Bharatpur Sub Metropolitan City, Chitwan

Abstract

Background: Safe motherhood means creating the circumstances within which a woman is able to choose whether she become pregnant and if she does, ensuring that she receives care for preventive and treatment of preg­nancy complication. This study was aimed to find out husband involvement in safe motherhood services and its associated factor. Methods: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted in purpo­sively selected Bharatpur sub metropolitan city of Chitwan district. Among 29 wards, three wards (2, 11, and 15) were selected by using simple random sam­pling method. Bivariate analysis was done to find out the factors, and signifi­cant factors in bivariate analysis, were further analyzed in multivariate to see the association between outcomes variables. Results: Husband involvement in family planning (FP), antenatal care (ANC), and childbirth were found to be 10.5%, 52.2% and 78.7% respectively. In mul­tivariate analysis, safe motherhood news listened by husband (AOR 9.813, CI: 4.854 - 19.839) was found statistically associated with husband involvement in antenatal care services. In multivariate analysis, husband who had engaged in business, service and farming/daily wages was found 20.668 (CI: 7.740 – 55.192), 13.058 (CI: 5.818 – 29.310) and 14.195 (CI: 4.139 – 48.674) times more likely involved during child birth respectively than those who had en­gaged in foreign job. Conclusions: Husband education on safe motherhood issues, employment opportunity within country and women decision-making power should be a significant part of strategies for increasing husband involvement in safe moth­erhood services.