[Effect of post-natal visit on the involvement in the activities of the mother-child program].

OBJECTIVES: Ascertain what effect post-natal visits have on recruiting involvement in the mother and child programme of activities. Identify the profile of mothers and children with little involvement in these activities. Ascertain how suitable the register is. DESIGN: Study of cohorts of previous years. The term exposed cohort refers to mothers who received the postnatal visit in 1989, and non-exposed cohort to those who did not receive one. SITE. Health Centres in Almanjayar and Cartuja. Primary Attention. Evaluation of the services offered. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: The sample consisted of the 166 women whose pregnancy we monitored from the Centre, and who gave birth between January and December 1989. MAIN MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: The most indicative results show that the group that received the post-natal visit tended to attend the healthy child clinic, family planning and metabolism testing services, with greater frequency, and to breast feed longer. The differences are only significant (p = 0.004) in the case of family planning. CONCLUSIONS: We positively evaluate the post-natal visit because of its contribution to the early detection of the problems of mother and child, and to recruitment into Family Planning. And because the examining risk has meant that factors associated with reduced coverage by the services (ethnicity, educational level, mother's age) did not act as such in our study.