Exploring the pregnant women’s perspective of late booking of antenatal care services at Mbekweni Health Centre in Eastern Cape, South Africa

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Exploring the pregnant women’s perspective of late booking of antenatal care services at Mbekweni Health Centre in Eastern Cape, South Africa
 
Creator Kaswa, Ramprakash Rupesinghe, George F.D. Longo-Mbenza, Benjamin
 
Subject Family Medicine ANC; late booking; stillbirth; foetus; gestational age
Description Background: Antenatal care (ANC) services are the gateway for integrated management of several conditions that adversely affect the mother and foetus. More stillbirths than neonatal deaths in South Africa are a reflection of poor quality ANC services. Aim: The primary aim of this study was to explore the reasons for late booking, and also to determine pregnant women’s knowledge, perceptions and attitude towards antenatal care services they receive in Mthatha area in Eastern Cape, South Africa. Setting: This was a qualitative study, conducted at Mbekweni Health Centre in the King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) subdistrict municipality of the Eastern Cape Province. Methods: This qualitative study consisted of selected pregnant women who presented after 19 weeks of gestation at Mbekweni Health Centre. Data were collected through two different methods, namely, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were used until saturation of the themes were reached. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematic analyses were undertaken. Results: Twenty women participated in the study. They were diverse in terms of age 18–41 years, gravidity 1–6 and time of ANC booking 20–28 weeks. The interviews identified a variety of personal, service and organisational reasons for late ANC booking. The themes identified for late ANC bookings were: health care system related issues, socio-economic factors, women’s perceptions and knowledge, and failure of family planning services. Conclusions: Women’s beliefs, knowledge and perceptions regarding antenatal services outweigh the perceived benefit of early ANC visit. The majority of women had lack of knowledge of contraception, early signs of pregnancy, purpose, timing and benefits of ANC visit.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor Discovery Health awarded rural fellowship award
Date 2018-07-02
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative research
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v10i1.1300
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 10, No 1 (2018); 9 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1300/2724 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1300/2723 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1300/2725 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1300/2721
 
Coverage South Africa 2015 Pregnant women
Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Ramprakash Kaswa, George F. D. Rupesinghe, Benjamin Longo-Mbenza https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
ADVERTISEMENT