BMJ 1998;317:477 ( 15 August )

Letters

Postnatal health education in Nepal

    Study cannot be generalised
    There are no shortcuts
    Quality of health education was not measured objectively
    Authors' reply

Study cannot be generalised

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---In their study on the effects of postnatal health education on mothers in Nepal Bolam et al conclude that "individual health education for postnatal mothers in poor communities has no impact on infant feeding, care, or immunisation...."1 This finding cannot be generalised to mothers who do not enjoy the health advantages of the mothers studied by Bolam et al. The effectiveness of health education programmes should be tested among those they are intended to benefit. The authors admit that their group is select, having opted to pay to have their babies in hospital. This reflects a high awareness of health issues and also economic security in a country in which only 7% of births are attended by trained staff and gross national product is $200 (£125) per capita.

Ninety per cent of the deaths that occurred among infants in the study were not preventable, being associated with prematurity . . . [Full text of this article]
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Relevant Article

The effects of postnatal health education for mothers on infant care and family planning practices in Nepal: a randomised controlled trial
Alison Bolam, Dharma S Manandhar, Purna Shrestha, Matthew Ellis, and Anthony M de L Costello
BMJ 1998 316: 805-811. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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