• Shrestha, Bhagawan Das
• Prof. Dr. Shrestha, Bhakta Man
• Prof Dr. Rimal, Nirmal

In Nepal, the utilization of maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) care services exhibit big gaps between rich and poor, for instance poorest quintile is at 10.7% skill births attendant services while richest at 81.5%, despite the services being free of cost. Pregnant women’s group (PWG) approach was initiated to address MNCH inequities prevailing in the disadvantaged community. The PWG is a socially cohesive peer support group of 8-15 pregnant women and postnatal mothers who meet monthly for participatory teaching and learning sessions on MNCH cares and semi-annual publicly group commitment meetings. At the meetings, husbands, mothers-in-law and father-in-law verbally commit to support their pregnant wives and daughters-in-law in presence of pregnant women. Local health staff also commits to provide those services. The PWG approach fulfills WHO’s three specific local factors that might be relevant to implementation of the women’s group approach. There are role of men and other members of the community, visual methods and ethnic group mix. In the PWG approach, the pregnant women’s husbands, mother-in- laws and father-in-laws are participated in a bi-annually publicly group commitments session. In the session, they commit to facilitate the pregnant women to get antenatal care, institutional delivery and postnatal care including newborn care. The PWG approach uses a visual method - a pictorial behavioural mapping mat for self- monitoring by pregnant women in the monthly health education session. The mat can be used easily even by an illiterate. The PWG has ethnic mixed group as this study have shown in total 81.8% respondents are from the so called disadvantage caste and remaining 18.2% from the so called upper caste. The pregnant women group approach fulfills one consideration and three local factors of WHO’s recommendation on women’s group. It should be replicated in the disadvantaged community where maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) care services coverage is low by considering following points: 1.Repeated monthly participatory teaching learning sessions on key MNCH care services messages directly to a pregnant woman; 2. Use of a behavioural mapping mat for self-monitoring by pregnant women; 3. Biannually publicly group commitments by husbands and in-laws; 4. Sharing the postnatal mothers’ experiences. The PWG approach can be a strategy to reduce the high burdens of maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality in developing countries.

Disadvantaged community, inequality health care service, maternal and newborn mortality, pregnant women’s group, utilization of health care service, behavioral mapping mat tool

"A Behaviour Mapping Mat Tool: for Increasing Maternal and Newborn Health Care Services in Disadvantaged Community", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no.649-654, April-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904A95.pdf

"A Behaviour Mapping Mat Tool: for Increasing Maternal and Newborn Health Care Services in Disadvantaged Community", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no. pp649-654, April-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904A95.pdf