KNOWLEDGE ON PRECONCEPTION CARE: AN ISSUE AMONG REPRODUCTIVE AGE WOMEN ATTENDING GYNAE/OBSTETRIC OPD OF NATIONAL MEDICAL COLLEGE.

Introduction: Preconception care is recognized as a critical component for both maternal and child health promotion. Preconception care may help to reduce the mortality and morbidity rates. Preconception is the integral part of antenatal care because it helps to reduce potential risk, promote healthy pregnancy and fetal outcome and improve readiness for pregnancy. It is designed for maintenance of health before pregnancy and to those who had previous problem with pregnancy. Methods: The descriptive cross sectional study was carried out among 55 reproductive age women visiting the Gynecological/Obstetric OPD of National Medical College Teaching Hospital, Birgunj with the objective to find the knowledge on preconception care by using pretested structured interview schedule. The collected Data were analyzed by using SPSS and MS Excel. Results: The study concludes that the majority 69.09% of reproductive age women had moderate knowledge regarding preconception care. There was significant association of knowledge regarding preconception care with occupation (P value 0.025) and area of residence (P value 0.021) of the reproductive age women, whereas there was no association seen with the age, education , types of family, religion, no. of children and family monthly income. Conclusions: The finding suggests that education and information booklet and various mass media should be developed to increase the level of knowledge on preconception care among reproductive age women.