Maternity service providers have struggled to provide high-quality services to women and newborns during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which has substantially impacted health systems and disrupted maternity services globally. Nepal is a resources-limited country that reported a significant impact of the pandemic on maternal health services. It is therefore important to understand better the perspective of health care professionals in this context. This study intends to explore the experiences of nurses providing maternity care in the public sector during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal. A qualitative study using a phenomenological design was conducted. Altogether ten nurses working in maternity services were selected using purposive sampling technique. Data were collected by face-to-face in-depth interviews using a semi-structured interview guide. Thematic analysis was conducted using Clarke and Braun 2006 technique. The findings of the study were organized into codes, sub-themes and themes. The six themes identified were fear of COVID-19 at work, challenges at work, changes at work and services, motivations to work, stigma due to COVID-19, and impact on services. Participants described how maternity services could not be stopped during the pandemic. They had experienced decreased utilization of antenatal services as a consequence of ‘lockdown’ thereby leading to an increase in maternal and neonatal mortality. Respondents reported ineffective human resource management compromising the quality of care. The professional responsibility to cope with adverse circumstances and serve society is a major source of motivation that health workers relied upon to get them through the pandemic period. A wide range of challenges were faced by service providers during the pandemic which requires action and support of all levels of government, institutions and society-at-large to assure the continued provision of safe maternity care during such a protracted period of challenging work.

Birth preparedness and complication readiness is the process planning for normal birth and anticipating the action needed in case of an emergency. Promoting birth and emergency planning helps to improve preventive behavior, increase awareness of mothers about danger signs and improvement in care seeking behavior in the case of obstetric complication. A cross sectional descriptive quantitative community-based study was conducted to assess knowledge and practice on birth preparedness and complication readiness among 150 pregnant women of 24 weeks gestation and above in selected wards of Biratnagar with non- probability purposive sampling. The findings of the study showed that 22.7% of the respondents had adequate knowledge on the birth preparedness and complication readiness and 19.8% of respondents had adequate practice. However, the only 9.3% of respondents were prepared for birth complications. Analysis using chi square test identified statistically significant association between knowledge and practice. The study found significant association of knowledge with gravida and weeks of gestation. It seemed there is significant association of practice level with occupation and weeks of gestation and weeks of gestation. The study identified inadequate knowledge and practices on birth preparedness and complication readiness. Thus, the government office, policy makers and partner that are working in maternal health should give due emphasis to preparation for birth and its complication and provide information and education to all pregnant women at community level.

IntroductionPostnatal care is the most important maternal health care intervention for prevention of impairments, disabilities and also reduction of maternal mortality. However, mothers often only seek postnatal care in the event of complications after birth. The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge and utilization of postnatal care services among mothers in a community at Buddhashanti, Jhapa. MethodsA descriptive cross sectional research design was adopted. Sample was taken from married women in the reproductive age group, residing in Buddhashanti rural municipality of Jhapa District, who had a live baby less than 24 months old, attending immunization outreach clinics. Non-probability purposive sampling was used to collect data. The sample size was 104. Data were collected using a self-developed, semi-structured questionnaire through interview. Descriptive statistics such asfrequency mean and standard deviation were used in the analysis of collected data. Association between dependent and independent variables was measured by using the Chi- square test. ResultsThe finding of the study revealed that less than half (32.7%) of the mothers had good knowledge on postnatal care. Similarly, the majority (87.5%)of mothers had not utilized postnatal care services. Study revealed that level of knowledge had significant association with ethnicity, educational level of respondent and number of ANC visits with p- value 0.002, 0.038, 0.040 respectively. Furthermore, utilization of postnatal care had association with occupation of respondent and typeof delivery (p- value<0.05). ConclusionsThis study showed that respondents had poor knowledge on postnatal care and the majority of respondents had not utilized postnatal care services. Study revealed that ethnicity; educational level of respondent and no. of ANC visit had association with level of knowledge. Furthermore, occupation of respondent and type of delivery had association with utilization of postnatal care.

Background and objectives: Family planning not only improves women’shealth but also promotes gender equality, better child health, and education, including poverty reduction. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the utilization of family planning methods and associated factors in Sunsari, Nepal. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional analytical study was conducted among women of the reproductive age group (15-49 years) in Sunsari in 2020. Non-probability purposive sampling was used to collect information from 212 respondents through face-to-face interviews using a Semi-structured interview schedule from ward no 1 of Barju rural municipality. Descriptive and inferential analysis (binary logistic regression)were used to find the association of utilization of family planning methods with selected demographic variables. All the variables with a p-value <0.1 in bivariate analysis were included in multivariate analysis. A p-value of <0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance at a level of significance of 5%. Results: This study showed that the mean age and standard deviation of the respondents was 26±7.03 and 91.5 % of respondents’ age at marriage was less than 20 years.Likewise,67.5% of respondents use any methods of family planning and 55.2% of respondents use family planning services from the government health facility. Furthermore, education ((AOR 1.579, CI 1.013-2.462), husband’s occupation (AOR1.095,CI 0.744-1.610), type of family ((AOR 2.741, CI 1.210-6.210), and no of the living son ((AOR 0.259, CI 0.077-0.872) are the factors associated with the utilization of family planning methods. Conclusion: This study concludes that two-thirds of the reproductive age women utilize family planning methods. Furthermore, education, husband’s occupation, type of family, and no of living son are the factors associated with the utilization of family planning methods. This reflects that awareness through mass media including behavioral communication is needed to increase the utilization of family planning methods.