COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF MEDICAL AND SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FAMILIES WITH SICK AND HEALTHY NEWBORNS

Abstract

In modern conditions, when the decline in the birth rate in the Russian Federation is one of the main problems facing the state, life and health of every newborn baby becomes especially important. Many factors influence adequate formation of children’s health, but it is the behavioral stereotypes and sanitary and hygienic skills of parents, alongside medical and social characteristics of families, that are of great importance for the child’s normal development. In order to identify the characteristics of families with children who were born sick and fell ill during the neonatal period, a comparison was made of the medical and social characteristics between these families and families with healthy newborns. The data obtained made it possible to state a significant difference in the age of parents of sick and healthy newborns: in mothers 30.55±0.46 versus 27.12±0.32 years (t=34.29; p <0.01) and in fathers 33.14±0.54 versus 29.76±0.45 years (t=25.44; p <0.01). An assessment of distribution of mothers by marital status did not show statistically significant difference between the indicators in the main and control groups, but the proportion of mothers who are not in an official marriage among women with a sick child was higher than among mothers of healthy children (38.5% versus 32.3%). Study of the parents’ educational background revealed that in families with a sick child more mothers and fathers had secondary and secondary specialized education and significantly fewer parents had incomplete higher and higher education (t=3.54 and t=3.46, respectively (p <0.01). The survey showed that, both among mothers and fathers, the share of employees and non_working persons (housewives) is higher and the share of workers, entrepreneurs and students is lower. The study showed that in families with more than three children sick babies or babies that fall ill during the neonatal period were significantly more likely to be born (t=2.01; p <0.05). Thus families with babies born sick or with babies that become ill in the course of the neonatal period have specific medico_social characteristics including parents’ marital status, age, number of children in the family, etc.