POSTPARTUM HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AFTER DIFFERENT MODES OF DELIVERY AMONG WOMEN IN PAKISTAN: THE NEGLECTED LINK FOR BETTER MATERNAL and CHILD HEALTH

Objective: The present study was designed to evaluate women postpartum quality of life after different modes of delivery in Pakistan.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used. A pre-validated tool SF-36 was self-administered to a sample of 382 women in the postpartum period (6-8 w, 10-12 w, 14-16 w,>9 mo,>15 mo) undergone through elective/emergency cesarean sections or normal vaginal delivery and had delivered a single live child. After data collection, data was cleaned coded and entered in SPSS version 21.0. Descriptive statistics comprising of frequency and percentages was calculated. The non-parametric tests including Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Walis (p ≥ 0.05) were performed to find out the difference among different variables.Results: Comparison of HRQOL domains by mode of delivery using Mann-Whitney test demonstrated a significant difference (p=0.01) between normal delivery and cesarean section. Women undergoing normal delivery had significantly higher scores as compared to women having cesarean section. Also, a significant difference (p=0.027) among HRQOL scores was observed between working women and house wives and as well who had better socioeconomic status (p=0.018).Conclusion: The results of the present study concluded that postpartum quality of life of most of the women undergoing normal vaginal delivery was better as compared to women undergoing cesarean sections in twin cities of Pakistan. Surgical intervention during cesarean section might lead to consistent postpartum pain, inability to cope with needs of newborn and family which in turn can reduce postpartum quality of life among women