Puerperal women’s knowledge on newborn’s body hygiene

Abstract Objectives: to identify puerperal women’s knowledge attending the housing unit at a teaching hospital about newborn body hygiene after receiving routine guidance from the nursing team. Methods: cross-sectional study, carried out with 207 puerperal women from a teaching hospital in the Minas Gerais State between December 2018 and May 2019. For data collection, an instrument was built and validated following three phases and descriptive statistics and linear correlation were used of Spearman’s, with a confidence level of 95% for knowledge analysis. Results: 207 puerperal women participated in the study, with a mean age of 27 ± 6.3 years. Inadequate knowledge was observed, mainly regarding the sequence of cleaning the face and scalp, adequate products and hygiene of the nose, ear and mouth. The domain “before the bath” presented the highest average percentage of correct questions (94.0%±10.1), including care with the environment, temperature and intimate hygiene. Conclusion: the identification of inadequate knowledge about the newborn’s body hygiene raises the need for constant and more effective guidelines, with the use of active methodologies starting in prenatal care.摘要 目的：明确某教学医院产科住院病房的产褥期妇女（puerperal women）在接受护理团队常规健康指导后，对新生儿身体卫生的认知水平。方法：本研究为横断面研究（cross-sectional study），于2018年12月至2019年5月期间，纳入巴西米纳斯吉拉斯州某教学医院的207名产褥期妇女作为研究对象。数据收集采用经三阶段构建并验证的研究工具；认知水平分析采用描述性统计及斯皮尔曼（Spearman）线性相关分析，置信水平设置为95%。结果：共纳入207名产褥期妇女，平均年龄为27±6.3岁。研究对象普遍存在新生儿身体卫生相关知识不足的情况，尤其在面部与头皮清洁顺序、合适清洁用品的选择，以及鼻、耳、口部卫生相关认知方面存在缺陷。其中“沐浴前”护理维度的正确答题率最高，为94.0%±10.1%，该维度涵盖环境护理、水温调节及私密部位卫生相关内容。结论：产褥期妇女对新生儿身体卫生知识存在不足的现状，凸显了需从产前保健（prenatal care）阶段开始，采用主动教学法提供持续且更具实效性的健康指导的必要性。