PURPOSE To explore Ghanaian pregnant women's understanding and recognition of danger signs in pregnancy, birth preparedness and complication readiness, and their understanding of newborn care. DESIGN An exploratory, qualitative study design was used. METHODS Data were gathered through six focus group discussions with 68 pregnant women attending antenatal care at a busy urban hospital in Gha...

BACKGROUND Antenatal care is widely established and provides an opportunity to inform and educate pregnant women about pregnancy, childbirth and care of the newborn. It is expected that this would assist the women in making choices that would contribute to good pregnancy outcome. We examined the provision of information and education in antenatal clinics from the perspective of pregnant women a...

BACKGROUND Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women constitutes a major public health problem. Antenatal care is considered a window of opportunity to disclose and to communicate about IPV. However, little is known about how women from different ethnic backgrounds wish to communicate about their experiences with IPV during pregnancy in antenatal care. The aim of the present study was to ex...

BACKGROUND Antenatal care aims to prevent maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. In Indonesia, at least four antenatal visits are recommended during pregnancy. However, this service has been underutilized. This study aimed to examine factors associated with underutilization of antenatal care services in Indonesia. METHODS We used data from Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey (IDH...

BACKGROUND Antenatal care is provided during pregnancy to save lives of mother and foetus. World Health Organization recommends four focused visits as sufficient for normal pregnancy. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to find out antenatal care practices in Tamang community of hilly areas of central Nepal. METHODS Descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Tamang community of...

While the importance of antenatal care for maternal and child health continues to be debated, several researchers have documented its impact on intermediate variables affecting survival such as birth weight. These studies have also highlighted the problems of causality that are typically not taken into account when estimating the effects of antenatal care on skilled birth attendance. In this st...

Women's satisfaction is a part of the quality assurance process with potential to improve antenatal health services. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of women's satisfaction with antenatal care in an urban Kazakhstani setting and investigate associated factors. A total of 1496 women who delivered in all maternity clinics from 6 February through 11 July 2013 in Semey, Eas...

BACKGROUND Standard health-service delivery aimed toward improving maternal and child health status remains elusive in Nigeria because of inaccuracies in data documentation leading to a lack of relatively stable evidence. OBJECTIVES Through a community-health project, this study tested the accuracy of record keeping in primary healthcare services in nine clinics run in Ibadan, Nigeria. METH...

The aim of the study was to estimate the use of skilled attendants' delivery services among users of antenatal care and the coverage of skilled attendants' delivery services in the general population in Kikoneni location, Kenya. Data collected from the registers at the Kikoneni Health Centre (KHC) from March 2001 through March 2003 were retrospectively reviewed. Antenatal care attendance, deliv...