Introduction: the most important factor that guarantees the health of mother and embryo during pregnancy is to become informed about prenatal care and follow it. Health literacy is an important and amendable factor in order to improve the access to health information, the relationship with health service providers, and orientation towards the health care system. By promoting health literacy, the undesirable postnatal outcomes can be reduced.Aim: this study was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between maternal health literacy level and pregnancy outcome in postnatal wards of Alzahra Education and Treatment Center in Rasht City.Methodology: The present study was a descriptive-analytical research, which was conducted by cross-sectional method in 2017. The researched population included all women hospitalized in the postnatal ward of Alzahra Education and Remedial Center in Rasht city, and the sample size was equal to 191 individuals. The data collection method included the Maternal Health Literacy and Pregnancy Outcome Questionnaire (MHLAPQ) that after confirmation of its validity and reliability, was used for data collection. The data analysis was conducted by means of descriptive statistics, the mean, and standard deviation, Spearman correlation coefficient test, Mann-Whitney test, and Kruskal-Wallis test.Results: there was a significant relationship between health literacy and mother’s education level (p=0.0001), husband’s education level (p=0.0001), monthly salary level (p=0.001), place of residence (p=0.001), and previous labor method (p=0.004). Regarding the relationship between pregnancy outcomes and health literacy level, the relationship between the score of mothers’ general health literacy and the pregnancy type in two groups (natural childbirth and caesarean section) was significant (p=0.004). In other words, the score of health literacy was higher in mothers who had a caesarean section. However, the score of health literacy had no significant relationship with other pregnancy outcomes.Conclusion: the results of this research indicated that there is a significant relationship between maternal health literacy and caesarean section. In other studied pregnancy outcomes, the positive effect of health literacy was observed, yet this relationship was not significant; however, it indicates the importance of further considering maternal health literacy in health improvement programs.
