Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, The University of Michigan Medical School, C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan mkerry@med.umich.edu.
OBJECTIVE: The delivery of anticipatory guidance regarding newborn care is a standard practice for pediatricians. The purpose of this prospective study was to analyze the preexisting knowledge of routine newborn care in postpartum mothers.
METHODS: Inclusion criteria included all postpartum mothers of live-born infants at least two hours following delivery that had not yet received formal instruction in newborn care. Each eligible mother that agreed to the voluntary survey was asked four multiple-choice questions which evaluated her knowledge of newborn care. The four questions addressed knowledge of safe sleep, car seat position, feeding behavior, and neonatal fever. A standardized template was used to ensure validity.
RESULTS were recorded in Microsoft Excel.
RESULTS: Of the study population, 42% (55/131) of surveyed mothers were first-time mothers. Overall, results of the survey demonstrated that postpartum mothers answered the surveyed questions correctly 88% of the time previous to receiving anticipatory guidance.
CONCLUSIONS: Postpartum mothers appear to have a high preexisting knowledge of routine newborn care in this study. Further studies are needed to determine if postpartum mothers' knowledge base increases with inpatient education.