Traditional Practices Applied to Maintenance of Mother During Pregnancy and Postpartum Period in Kars

Aim: This search has been done to determine the traditionalpractices at pregnancy and postpartum period which is applied to maintance of mother in Kars.

Method: A total of 500 women attending in the obstetrics department of a hospital who had at least one living birth between January and April 2013 and accepting to participate in this study were included in this study. A questionnaire, prepared by the researcher, was used to collect data.

Results: 70% of the women consider important to some traditional practices in different levels. It was determined that during their postpartum period 40% of women conducted traditional practices related to breastfeeding, 64% conducted traditional practicesrelated to puerperality, and 33.6% conducted traditional practices related to pregnancy. It has been determined the traditional practices at postpartum period which is applied to maintenance of mother as follows: making the forties of confi ned women (97.8%) and intercourse is forbidden the 40 days of confi ned women (98.7%) these applications have been found at the fi rst orders.

Conclusion: It has been found that the women in the scope of the search consider maintenance some traditional practices to mother at pregnancy and the postpartum period. Women were educated about mother care in pregnancy and postpartum period by health personnel and training consistently and regularly informed about the wrong traditional practices is recommended.