Prevalence and determinants of essential newborn care practices in the Lawra District of Ghana

BACKGROUND: There was less than satisfactory progress, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, towards child and maternal mortality targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5. The main aim of this study was to describe the prevalence and determinants of essential new newborn care practices in the Lawra District of Ghana. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out in June 2014 on a sample of 422 lactating mothers and their children aged between 1 and 12 months. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select the study participants who attended post-natal clinic in the Lawra district hospital. RESULTS: Of the 418 newborns, only 36.8% (154) was judged to have had safe cord care, 34.9% (146) optimal thermal care, and 73.7% (308) were considered to have had adequate neonatal feeding. The overall prevalence of adequate new born care comprising good cord care, optimal thermal care and good neonatal feeding practices was only 15.8%. Mothers who attained at least Senior High Secondary School were 20.5 times more likely to provide optimal thermal care [AOR 22.54; 95% CI (2.60–162.12)], compared to women had no formal education at all. Women who received adequate ANC services were 4.0 times (AOR = 4.04 [CI: 1.53, 10.66]) and 1.9 times (AOR = 1.90 [CI: 1.01, 3.61]) more likely to provide safe cord care and good neonatal feeding as compared to their counterparts who did not get adequate ANC. However, adequate ANC services was unrelated to optimal thermal care. Compared to women who delivered at home, women who delivered their index baby in a health facility were 5.6 times more likely of having safe cord care for their babies (AOR = 5.60, Cl: 1.19–23.30), p = 0.03. CONCLUSIONS: The coverage of essential newborn care practices was generally low. Essential newborn care practices were positively associated with high maternal educational attainment, adequate utilization of antenatal care services and high maternal knowledge of newborn danger signs. Therefore, greater improvement in essential newborn care practices could be attained through proven low-cost interventions such as effective ANC services, health and nutrition education that should span from community to health facility levels. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12887-018-1145-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.