Maternal and Child Health Services in Rural Settings of the Gambia: Contextual Determinants of Postnatal Care from Mothers' Perspectives - A Community-Based Analytical Cross-Sectional Study

Background. Maternal and child health in The Gambia is a trending public health burden. The postnatal period is critical and vital to the lives and health of the maternal mothers and their newborns, and pieces of evidence deduced that a majority of maternal and newborn deaths occur during this period. Hence, this research aimed to assess the prevalence and determinants of postnatal care utilization across women in rural Gambia. Methods. A community-based cross-sectional design was conducted in January 2020, with 265 women of childbearing age were recruited from the selected households in rural communities across the Upper River Region (URR), Gambia, using multistage sampling technique. A structured-interview questionnaire was developed to elicit contextual sociodemographic characteristics regarding the use of postnatal care. Percentages, chi-square/Fisher's exact test for variables with p value ≤0.15 were considered for inclusion into the logistic regression model. The significance level was set at p<0.05. The adjusted odds ratios (aOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) were computed to declare significance. Results. The study revealed that 90% of women utilize postnatal care (PNC) services in the rural settings of URR, Gambia. Factors such as women's occupation, location, number of pregnancies, attending in last pregnancy, current uptake of family planning, and complication(s) in last labor were found to be associated with PNC utilization. Women who attended antenatal care (ANC) services in their last pregnancy were 10.8 times (aOR = 10.795, 95% CI: 1.025-113.694), current users of FP were 10.7 times (aOR = 10.708, 95% CI: 1.379-83.152), women's number of pregnancies increases by a factor of 4.6 times (aOR = 4.649, 95% CI: 1.518-14.243) more likely to utilize PNC while women's number of children alive were less likely by 76.1% (aOR = 0.239, 95% CI: 0.071-0.810) as compared to those who were not utilizing PNC services. Conclusion. The findings showed that attending ANC services, current uptake of FP, women's number of pregnancies, and number of children alive were associated with PNC. Strengthening women empowerment and designing responsive ANC programs especially for rural women to improve PNC services are required.