Promoting Health Practices of Teenage Mothers Regarding Health Care of Their Infants

Abstract

Context: The care the infant receives depends a lot on the knowledge, skills of the mother. Teenage mothers are supposed to lack knowledge; practices of infant care need to improve their knowledge and practice for their infants.
Aim: This study aimed to evaluate promoting health practices of teenage mothers regarding the health care of their infants.
Methods: A quasi-experimental design was applied to achieve the objective of the study. The study was conducted in MCH centers (El Azab Health Center) located in the Cairo governorate. A convenience sample of 124 teenage mothers was recruited in this study. They are aged between 16-20 years and have an infant from 1 month to 18 months. Three tools were used for data collection. The first tool was a structured interview questionnaire consisting of three parts: Socioeconomic-demographic data of teenage mothers and infants' characteristics. The second part included questions about teenage mothers' knowledge about their infant health care. The third part includes questions about infant medical history. The second tool includes a checklist of teenage mothers' practices related to the care of their infants, and the third tool includes infant physical assessment.

Results: The study's main results revealed that near two-thirds (65.3%) of the teenage mothers had good knowledge, and more than three-fifths of them (61.3%) can do practices acceptably toward their infant care post-program. There was a statistically significant relation between teenage mothers' knowledge and practice regarding their infants' care post-program at p=0.89.
Conclusion: Most teenage mothers post-program had a higher level of knowledge and practices regarding their infant care compared to the preprogrammed. The study recommended that special attention should be directed to teenage mothers and their infants to promote their knowledge and practices through health education programs for teenage mothers who should be informed about all aspects of infants' care in antenatal clinics, antenatal counseling, and postnatal classes.