Research Article Early Postnatal Care Service Utilization and Its Determinants among Women Who Gave Birth in the Last 6 MonthsinWonagoDistrict,SouthEthiopia:ACommunity-Based Cross-Sectional Study Yordanos Tefera, 1 Samirawit Hailu, 1 and Ruth Tilahun 2 1 Department of Public Health, College of Health & Medical Science, Dilla University, Dilla, Ethiopia 2 Department of Midwifery, College of Health & Medical Science, Dilla University, Dilla, Ethiopia Correspondence should be addressed to Ruth Tilahun; rutilahun@gmail.com Received 26 June 2020; Revised 23 September 2020; Accepted 13 March 2021; Published 14 April 2021 Academic Editor: George Uchenna Eleje Copyright © 2021 Yordanos Tefera et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. Postnatal care is one of the key strategies to reduce maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality. Early postnatal visit is especially the most critical time for survival of mothers and newborns, particularly through early detection and man- agement of postpartum complication. Despite the benefits, most mothers and newborns do not receive postnatal care services from health care providers during the critical first few days after delivery. Objective. e aim of this study was to assess utilization of early postnatal care service and associated factors among women who gave birth in the last six months in Wonago District, Gedeo Zone, Southern Ethiopia. Methods. A community-based cross-sectional study design was employed at Wonago District. A total of 612 mothers who gave birth in the last six months were selected by simple random sampling technique. Pretested structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were entered into EpiData version 3.1 and then exported into SPSS version 20 for analysis. Principal component analysis (PCA) and bivariate and multivariate logistic regression were used. Result.In this study, 13.7% of mothers utilized early postnatal care. Educational status of mothers (AOR � 3.7 : 95 CI; 1.3–10.7), place of delivery (AOR: 1.8 : 95 CI; 1.03–3.2), ANC attendance (AOR � 3.4:95 CI; 1.1–10.09), development of complication after delivery (AOR: 7.8 :95 CI; 3.7–16.2), and previous history of postnatal care utilization (AOR: 2.1: 95 CI; 1.13–3.9) were found to be associated with early postnatal care service utilization. Conclusion and Recommendations. Educational status of mothers, ANC attendance, place of delivery, delivery complication while giving recent birth, and past history of postnatal care utilization were significant predictors for early postnatal care utilization. Considering this, empowering women with education and overall strengthening of health facility to improve maternal health service utilization are necessary measures to be done at different levels to enhance early postnatal care utilization during this critical time. 1. Background Postnatal care (PNC) is the care given to the mother and her newborn baby immediately after birth of baby up to the first six weeks of life, and it is decisive to the general wellbeing of both the mother and the newborn [1]. ree phases of contact are recommended which include the immediate postnatal period within the first 24 hours after birth, early postnatal period from day two through 7, and late postnatal period extending from day 8 through 42 days [2]. PNC visit is very critical time for the survival of both mother and child. e early postnatal period, especially the first week after delivery, is the time when effective postnatal care can bring a difference to the health and life chances of mothers and newborns [3]. Since early postnatal care is very essential service to protect the mother from birth-related Hindawi Obstetrics and Gynecology International Volume 2021, Article ID 4286803, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/4286803