| Objective:To understand the needs and satisfaction of postnatal care of rural women, to analyze the influencing factors and the main problems, and to provide basic information for the improvement of the quality of postnatal health care in rural areas.Method:It is a qualitative study involving non-participant observations and semi-structured interviews. A total of13rural women and27service providers were recruited. Data were analyzed through a reflective process and the findings were presented through the identification and interpretation of themes and sub-themes.Results:The needs of women were found to be in need of guidelines for neonatal health, feeding, hygiene, breastfeeding, contraception,family support and home visits. The rural postnatal care could not meet the needs of the women, there are issues of incomprehensive health guidance and the ignorance of maternal mental health, health education and the formality of the postpartum visits were widely present. Postnatal services did not have enough funding, personnel, skills, training, and accountability. Village doctors and other health workers were in great needs of supervision.Discussion:Rural women need high quality postnatal care, because of their weak consciousness of health, deficiency of health knowledge. Government should spend much more on postnatal health care and strengthen its regulations. Government also needs to optimize the allocation of human resources, promote the professionalization of postpartum visit personnel, explore the midwives allocation in postnatal visits.Conclusions:The rural postnatal care could not meet women’s needs and became merely a formality. Many have affected the provision and utilization of the care, including the shortage of fund, unreasonable human resources and lack of supervision. It is recommended that government should pay more attention to postnatal health care and take effective measures to improve postnatal care in rural areas. |
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