Assessment of Essential Newborn Care Practices and Associated Factors Among Postpartum Mothers: Insights from Postnatal Mothers in Tembaro District, Southern Ethiopia

Background: Essential newborn care (ENC) encompasses a range of evidence-based interventions aimed at improving neonatal health outcomes and reducing mortality. Despite global efforts to improve neonatal survival, newborn deaths still account for approximately half of all under-five mortality cases, especially in low-resource settings. Adherence to recommended infant care practices remains a difficulty, contributing to avoidable neonatal mortality. In Ethiopia, newborn mortality is a serious public health issue, with an estimated rate of 33 fatalities for every 1000 live births. Therefore, this study seeks to assess essential newborn care practices and their associated factors among postpartum mothers in Tembaro Zone, Southern Ethiopia. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in, involving 390 postnatal mothers. Participants were selected using multistage simple random sampling. Data were entered into EpiData version 3.1 and exported to STATA version 16.0 for analysis. We performed binary and multiple logistic regression analysis to find factors related to the outcome variable. To determine the presence of association, an adjusted odd ratio was generated along with its 95% confidence interval. A P- value of less than .05 was used to indicate statistically significant. Results: The overall practice of essential newborn care was 57.7% (95% CI: 52.6-62.6). Significant factors of ENC included maternal educational status (AOR = 3.2; 95% CI: 1.45-6.98), absence of home visits by health extension workers (AOR = 0.32; 95% CI: 0.19-0.54), having 2 or fewer live births (AOR = 0.34; 95% CI: 0.20-0.57), lack of antenatal care visits (AOR = 0.48; 95% CI: 0.28-0.81), and insufficient knowledge (AOR = 0.24; 95% CI: 0.12-0.48). Conclusion: Approximately half of postnatal mothers practiced essential newborn care. The absence of health extension worker visits, having 2 or fewer live births, lack of antenatal care visits, and insufficient knowledge were negatively associated with essential newborn care practices. Conversely, educational level was positively correlated with essential newborn care practices.