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Objective: Preconception care is aimed to promote optimal health in women before conception to reduce or prevent poor pregnancy outcomes. Although there are several published primary studies from sub-Saharan African countries on preconception care, they need to quantify the extent of preconception care utilization, the knowledge level about preconception care, and the association among women in the reproductive age group in this region. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to estimate the pooled utilization of preconception care, pooled knowledge level about preconception care, and their association among women in the reproductive age group in sub-Saharan Africa., Methods: Databases including PubMed, Science Direct, Hinari, Google Scholar, and Cochrane library were systematically searched for relevant literature. Additionally, the references of included articles were checked for additional possible sources. The Cochrane Q test statistics and I 2 tests were used to assess the heterogeneity of the included studies. A random-effect meta-analysis model was used to estimate the pooled prevalence of preconception care, knowledge level of preconception care, and their correlation among reproductive-aged women in sub-Saharan African countries., Results: Of the identified 1593 articles, 20 studies were included in the final analysis. The pooled utilization of preconception care and good knowledge level about preconception care among women of reproductive age were found to be 24.05% (95% confidence interval: 16.61, 31.49) and 33.27% (95% confidence interval: 24.78, 41.77), respectively. Women in the reproductive age group with good knowledge levels were greater than two times more likely to utilize the preconception care than the women with poor knowledge levels in sub-Saharan African countries (odds ratio: 2.35, 95% confidence interval: 1.16, 4.76)., Conclusion: In sub-Saharan African countries, the utilization of preconception care and knowledge toward preconception care were low. Additionally, the current meta-analysis found good knowledge level to be significantly associated with the utilization of preconception care among women of reproductive age. These findings indicate that it is imperative to launch programs to improve the knowledge level about preconception care utilization among women in the reproductive age group in sub-Saharan African countries., Competing Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

Introduction: Household flooring has been associated with diarrhea, but few studies have examined the association between childhood diarrhea and type of household flooring considering the individual and community level characteristics. We aimed to determine if household flooring was associated with childhood diarrhea among children 0 to 23 months of age in Ethiopia., Methods: Data from the fourth round of the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) conducted in 2016 is used to carry out the analysis. The EDHS was large, cross-sectional by design and nationally representative. In the current analysis, we included children 0 to 23 months of age (n = 4552) with their mother and 636 community clusters. To get information about the occurrence of diarrhea, mothers/caregivers were asked, "Has (NAME) had diarrhea in the last 2 weeks?" The response to this question was recorded as, "yes" or "no." A multilevel binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify factors associated with childhood diarrhea., Results: The overall prevalence of diarrhea among children 0 to 23 months of age in Ethiopia was 15.5% (95% CI [confidence interval] 14.4-16.5). No association was found between childhood diarrhea and type of household flooring (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 1.05, 95% CI 0.59-1.88). The adjusted odds also showed that the age of the child, having an acute respiratory infection (ARI), and size of the child at birth were associated with diarrhea., Conclusion: We found no association between childhood diarrhea and the type of household flooring. Further research with strong research design is needed to determine the effect of household flooring on childhood diarrhea., Competing Interests: Declaration Of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2021.)

Objective: Adverse birth outcomes, which include stillbirth, preterm birth, low birthweight, congenital abnormalities, and stillbirth, are the leading cause of neonatal and infant mortality worldwide. We assessed adverse birth outcomes and associated factors among mothers who gave birth in Bale zone hospitals, Oromia, Southeast Ethiopia., Methods: We used systematic random sampling in this cross-sectional study. We identified factors associated with adverse birth outcomes using bivariate analysis and multivariable logistic regression analysis., Results: The proportion of adverse birth outcomes among participants was 21%. Of 576 births, 70 (12.2%) were low birthweight, 49 (8.5%) were preterm birth, 45 (7.8%) were stillbirth, and 18 (3.1%) infants had congenital anomalies. Inadequate antenatal care (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 6.58, 95% confidence interval [CI] 3.25-13.32), multiple pregnancy (AOR  =  4.74, 95% CI 1.55-14.45), premature rupture of membranes in the current pregnancy (AOR = 2.31, 95% CI 1.26-4.21), hemoglobin level  < 11 g/dL (AOR = 3.22, 95% CI 1.85-5.58), and mid-upper arm circumference less than 23 cm (AOR = 5.93, 95% CI 3.49-10.08) were all significantly associated with adverse birth outcomes., Conclusions: Approximately one in five study participants had adverse birth outcomes. Increasing antenatal care uptake, ferrous supplementation during pregnancy, and improving the quality of maternal health services are recommended.