Postnatal Care for the Mother

• The immediate care of a newborn child is done by the doctor nurse or a trained midwife. Following this care of mother becomes necessary. Being in labor, the woman gets lethargic and weak. She feels sleepy or fainted and so she is given hot milk or tea. Thereafter she should be allowed to take a good sleep.
• During gestation period, pregnancy related organs undergo considerable changes which take time to come back to their natural form. After childbirth mother needs a lot of rest. During pregnancy the weight of uterus becomes as high as 1kg which is 40-50 gm more than the original one. It takes uterus almost 40 days to lose this extra weight and so the mother is advised to take more rest. For the next 20-30 days, blood loss is even more, so the mother should take nutritious food along with taking care of personal hygiene such as wearing clean clothes, using clean napkin etc.
• In addition to this, mother should not do laborious work such as lifting weight, water-filled bucket etc.
  Sometimes mother’s urinary bladder gets infected causing fever. After childbirth digestibility weakens and so the first day mother is given vitamin, mineral- rich kedgeree, porridge, milk, vegetable soup, lentils or other solid food to eat.
• In case of normal delivery, mother is given celery, jaggery water, almond-poppy seed pudding (halwa), gond ke ladoo, and laddoo made from dry fruits-methi-jaggery-ghee to eat but spicy, fried, roasted, stale, sour, stodgy food is avoided. The mother should eat 5-6 short meals during the day and take rest for at least 40-50 days.

Necessary preparations for delivery time

1. Selection of a proper doctor
2. Selection of a suitable place for delivery
3. Selection of midwife or nurse to take care immediately after childbirth.
4. Keeping clothes and other essentials ready for the mother
5. In case of delivery at home, selection of a trained midwife
6. Arranging essentials for the newborn baby

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Important Points of Maternal and Post-Natal Care :- 

1. The immediate care of a newborn child is done by the doctor, nurse or a trained midwife.
2. After childbirth mother needs a lot of rest. Mother should take nutritious food along with avoiding laborious work.
3. Lot of caution and patience is required to take care of the newborn.
4. Breastfeeding by mother provides the nourishment to the baby. In some cases when mother cannot breastfeed, the baby has to depend on milk of cow, buffalo, goat or preserved bottle milk .
5. Clean the bottle properly after formula is prepared.
6. Before taking the baby for bath check the warmth of water and keep important articles such as bath tub, boric lotion, oil, towel, clothes, powder etc, ready.
7. The baby needs some practice to defecate in a pot. Gradually he learns to do it by himself.
8. For a good sleep, baby’s bed should be clean and soft.

Maternal and Post-Natal Care Questions-Answers

1. Who takes care of a newborn?
(a) Doctor
(b) Nurse
(c) Trained midwife
(d) all of these

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2. What is given to eat to a mother after normal delivery?
(a) Stodgy food
(b) fried food
(c) Spicy food
(d) kedgeree, porridge

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Answer :- ( D )

3. The milk other than mother’s milk which is given as nourishment to the baby is called —
(a) Colostrum
(b) formula
(c) Pasteurized food
(d) fat rich milk

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Answer :- ( B )

4. | Which bottle should be used keeping in mind its cleaning?
(a) small- mouth
(b) wide mouth
(c) Round mouth
(d) narrow mouth

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Answer :- ( C )

5. The temperature of water used for baby’s bath should be
(a) Too hot
(b) too cold
(c) Neither hot nor cold
(d) none of these

Answer :- ?????