Family socio-demographic factors and maternal obstetric factors influencing appropriate health-care seeking behaviours for newborn jaundice in Sagamu, Nigeria.

Poor care-seeking behaviour of families may be responsible for the high prevalence of complications of newborn jaundice in the developing world. To examine the influence of family socio-demographic characteristics and maternal obstetric factors on health care-seeking behaviours for newborn jaundice and the inter-relationship between this behavior and severity of newborn jaundice. Mothers whose babies were referred to a Nigerian tertiary hospital with jaundice were studied in a cross-sectional survey for appropriate health-care seeking behaviours as well as the need for exchange transfusion and the occurrence of kernicterus in their babies.