Abstract

In order to facilitate the Korean government's efforts in integrating family planning and maternal & child health at the primary health care level (or township level), the Soon Chun Hyang College of Medicine, with the financial and technical assistance of WHO, has undertaken a service research project. The project has employed a quasi-experimental study design introducing interventions that provide crucial factors lacking in the ongoing government programs such as midwives and qualified regerral physicians. The study is being conducted in three locations, one control area and two study areas. Before introducing trained Nurse/Midewives into the study areas, a baseline prevalence survey was undertaken from 15 July 1981 to 10 August 1981 in selected townships of Seosan County. In this sample survey of both the study and control areas, 2,484 eligible women (97% response rate) were interviewed to obtain benchmark data on basic evaluation indicators related to family planning and maternal and child health. The salients results were summarized as follows: 1. CONTACT RATES WITH HEALTH WORKERS; During the year preceding the survey, 12% of women were visited by government health workers. The primary reason for such visits by health workers was family planning( 45% of the visits). About 34% of the women visited the health centers during the year. The primary reason for visiting health centers was immunizations for their children (45% of the visits). 2. FAMILY PLANNING USE RATE; The baseline data showed little difference between women in the study area and the control area on contraceptive use. Approximately 59% were currently using some methods. However, among those current users, almost half were practicing less effective methods of birth control such as rhythm of withdrawal. Among other methods, the tubectomy was the most popular (16%), while use of the IUD, oral pill and condom together reached only 14%. 3. PRENATAL CARE RATE; About 75% of the women reported no prenatal care for their last births (the youngest child of each women). Additionally, among women received prenatal care, over half had only one visit. 4. ATTENDANCE AT DELIVERY; Most of the women surveyed (over 80%) were attended by a non-medical person during their last delivery. These figures are somewhat comparable to the national figure 84% for remote areas. 5. POSTNATAL CARE; The proportion of women reporting postnatal care was only 4.5%, and postnatal care was not received by the majority of women surveyed. 6. CHILD HEALTH CARE; In contrast to the low rate of maternity care for women themselves, most women reported obtaining immunization care for their children. About 75% of the women obtained Polio and/or DPT, 58% BCG, and 44% Measles vaccine for their children. However, in terms of illness care, while 35% of the women stated that their youngest child had been sick during the month preceding the survey, only 28% of these women took their child to the clinic for treatment. 7. COMPLICATIONS OF PREGNANCY AND DELIVERY AND ABNORMALITIES IN THE NEWBORN; Among all last deliveries, 18% of the women had pregnancy complications and 9% of the women had complications during delivery. About 5% of the women reported abnormality in their most recent newborn. 8. REPRODUCTION EFFICIENCY; PERINATAL MORTALITY AND INFANT MORTALITY Based on data from the pregnancy history in this survey, reproduction efficiency was estimated. Out of the 11,154 pregnancies reported by all women surveyed, foetal loss was 21% (almost 16% were induced abortions) and infant deaths before reaching one year old were 3.1%. The reproduction efficiency was, therefore, reduced to 76%. In terms of perinatal and infant mortality rates, the former was 40.2 per 1,000 total births and the latter was 39.3 per 1,000 live births. Both rates described J shaped relationships with age of mothers and parity. And they were also correlated with birth interval and mother's education. In summary, this baseline survey data indicated a need for (1) improving contraceptive practices with more effective methods to prevent unwanted pregnancies and (2) providing better services for maternal and child care to protect wanted pregnancies. In the Korean rural setting, the author believes that the latter is more important as the value of each child has increased as a result of the family planning campaign for the past two decades. This calls for more effective integration of Family Planning and MCH programmes to meet the needs of the family in each stage of the child bearing and rearing period with deploying more qualified personnel than the current government program personnel.