Iranian Husbands\' Involvement in Prenatal Care, Childbirth and Postpartum: Viewpoints of the Mothers

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Pregnancy is one of the most important, critical  and at the same time glorious periods in every woman's life that the male involvement plays an important role in promoting prenatal, childbirth, and postpartum care and health of both mother and infant. The aim of this study was to determine the level of male involvement in these periods in Iran. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in six provinces of Iran in 2015. Totally, 2788 mothers with a history of childbirth between 2-6 months were randomly selected for classification. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire containing 34 individual, family and environmental questions and 17 ones were related to the male involvement based on Likert scale with the score of 1-5.  Mean higher than 3.5 was considered as higher than average or sufficient involvement. The data were simultaneously collected from health records and through interviews with mothers. FINDINGS: The mean age of 2713 mothers under study was 27.7±5.5 years. From the mothers’ point of view, the mean of men's involvement was 3.60±0.72 from at least 0.71 to at most 5.0. The minimum and maximum participations were observed in training class and dealing rationally with the mothers’ weakness and faintness (2.5±1.6) and (4.4±0.9), respectively. There was a significant relationship between men's participation and mother's occupation, husband's education, number of pregnancies and children, unwanted pregnancy, bad memories of postpartum period and the areas of maternal death (P