In-home Smoking in Households with Women of Reproductive Age in Nepal: Does Women's Empowerment Matter?

Husband's knowledge related to their role in caring wives with preeclampsia risk

OBJECTIVE

Around the world, preeclampsia still become a problem. It is affected nearly eight percent of total pregnancies and resulted in women's morbidity and mortality. Pregnant women who are at risk for preeclampsia certainly need support from the family, especially their husband. Some studies suggest that the expecting fathers was less involved in pregnancy. Other studies also suggested that men have less knowledge about pregnancy complication. The purpose of this study was to analyze the correlation between husband's knowledge and their role in caring wives with preeclampsia risk.

METHOD

The design in this study was cross-sectional with purposive sampling. There were 93 husbands involved in the study. Data collection used questionnaires and analyzed by Spearman's rho test (α≤0.01). The independent variable was husband's knowledge and the dependent variable was their role in caring wives with preeclampsia risk.

RESULT

More than 60% participant had less knowledge about preeclampsia especially the signs and the risk factors. The majority of husband performed moderate role in caring their wives. Their role included attends antenatal visit, motivates their wives to reduce salt intake and limit tiring activity. Only less than 20% always avoid smoking while at home, helps with house chores, and seeking information related preeclampsia. The results showed that there was a correlation between husband's knowledge and their role in caring wife with preeclampsia risk (p=0.000; r=0.440).

CONCLUSION

Husbands with more knowledge about preeclampsia performed better role in caring wives with preeclampsia risk.

Herbal medicine use by pregnant women in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study

Background

Herbal medicines in pregnancy are increasingly used worldwide with prevalence of up to 67%. Although this popularity is mainly because of the common belief that these medicines are safe, recent reports suggest that several herbal medicines are potentially harmful to mother and fetus if used in pregnancy.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted in July and August of year 2017, at maternity wards of two public hospitals in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Postpartum women were interviewed via the structured questionnaire to collect information regarding socio-demographic and health characteristics, patterns of herbal medicines used in the previous pregnancy, and outcome of pregnancy.

Results

Two hundred forty-three postpartum women participated in the study, with 70% of them using at least one modality of herbal medicines in previous pregnancy. Ginger, black seed, lemon tea, prune, and mustard oil were most commonly used herbal medicines. Herbal medicines were mostly used for pregnancy-related symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and cold. Fifteen (8.8%) herbal medicine users reported side effects.

Conclusions

This study highlights popularity of herbal medicines during pregnancy in Bangladesh. Previous herbal medicine users and unemployed women turned significantly more to herbal medicines during pregnancy. Reports of side effects and use of some potentially harmful modalities warrant awareness regarding proper use of herbal medicines in pregnancy and its pharmacovigilance.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12906-018-2399-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.