Assessment of Health Knowledge on Pregnancy, After Delivery and Newborn Baby Danger Signs among Migrant Mothers in Tak Province at Thailand-Myanmar Border

Awareness of danger signs in pregnancy, after delivery and newborn baby among mothers lead to seek immediate health care and consequently reduce maternal and neonatal mortality. Thailand has accepted about 3 million blue-collar migrant workers from neighboring countries mainly from Myanmar. Understanding the level of knowledge of migrant mothers and its associated factors would be helpful for health agencies to implement suitable health promotion programs.

Myanmar migrant women who had been living in the five border districts of Tak province, Thailand and delivered in the health facilities in five districts during September 2017 to March 2018 were face to face mother interviewed after 12 weeks after delivery with structured questionnaires.

Among 723 migrant women, only 125 respondents (17.29%) could mention 8 or more danger signs and 218 participants (30.15%) knew only less than 4 danger signs out of total 16 danger signs. The level of health knowledge on danger signs were significantly associated with resident district (χ² = 17.52, P<0.001), mother education (χ² = 17.06, P=0.002), health insurance status (χ² = 9.52, P=0.009),household income (χ² = 26.92, P = <0.001), location of home in factory compounds or in villages (χ² = 18.94, P=0.001), watching TV regularly (χ² = 15.25, P<0.001).

The migrant mothers in this study showed low health knowledge on danger signs. The organizations working for migrant health in Thai-Myanmar border should focus the provision of pregnancy and newborn healthcare messages to the illiterate mothers with low family income without health insurance in living in agricultural farms and factory.