ABSTRACT

Background: Antenatal care (ANC) services are defined as an umbrella term used to describe the medical procedures and care carried out during pregnancy. Antenatal care, a pregnancy related services provided to pregnant women by health professionals, is among the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) four and five, the major interventions which is aimed at preventingNeonatal death and maintaining the health of the women during pregnancy (Nove et al,. 2021). ANC has many component such as laboratory investigation, referral, health education etc. Antenatal care (ANC) is very important to pregnant women as it helps prevent mother and child mortality, prevent complications help foster a good relationship between the husband and wife, mother and child and father and child (Luseno et al,. 2019).

Objectives: Basically, this study is out to access the knowledge, practices and challenges face toward Antenatal care services amongst pregnant women in the regional hospital Buea. To meet up with the broad coverage of the study, it was broken down into the following research objectives.

• To access knowledge of pregnant women on the importance of ANC Service at the regional hospital Buea
• To examine the practice of pregnant women towards ANC in the regional hospital Buea
• To study challenges faced by pregnant women towards ANC in the regional hospital Buea.

Methods: The study adopted the cross sectional research design. Convenient sampling technique was employed with a sample size of 20. Primary data through questionnaires was used for data collection. The data were analyzed using SPSS.

Results: The study’s findings revealed that pregnant women in Buea, have sufficient knowledge on ANC practices and some other practices engage in during ANC include; screening, counseling, treatment of minor ailment. The study also found out that one of the challenges faced by pregnant women towards attending ANC is the attitude of health workers and at times because of long waiting lines.

Conclusion: The study thus concluded that pregnant women at the regional hospital have sufficient knowledge on ANC and thus embrace the practice. The study further concluded that the attitude of health workers and at times waiting in lines are the main challenges faced by pregnant women.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

 Antenatal care (ANC) services are defined as an umbrella term used to describe the medical procedures and care carried out during pregnancy. Antenatal care, a pregnancy related services provided to pregnant women by health professionals, is among the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) four and five, the major interventions which is aimed at preventingNeonatal death and maintaining the health of the women during pregnancy (Nove et al,. 2021)

ANC has many component such as laboratory investigation, referral, health education etc. Antenatal care (ANC) is very important to pregnant women as it helps prevent mother and child mortality, prevent complications help foster a good relationship between the husband and wife, mother and child and father and child (Luseno et al,. 2019)

ANC can help women prepared for delivery and understand warning signs during pregnancy and childbirth. It can be a source for micronutrient supplementation, treatment for pregnancy induced hypertension provition of immunization against tetanus, HIV testing and medication. Although this ANC is important for these pregnant women, they are some factors that hinder these women from using ANC such as poverty and lack of health facilities (McCauley, 2022).

Improving maternal health is of the developments of the MDGs. The aim of this is to Strengthening health systems, Monitoring and evaluating the burden of maternal and newborn ill-health, Building effective partnership in order to make best use of scarce resources. Although maternal death worldwide have almost halved since 1990 according to WHO latest figure, every roughly 800 women and adolescence girls die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth. In 2010, 287,000 women died during childbirth with almost all of these death (99%) occurring in low-resources setting but a decline of 47% were recorded from all levels 1990. Most of them died because they had no access to skilled routine and emergency care. Since 1990, some countries in Asia and Northern Africa have more than halved maternal mortality (Kurjak, Stanojevic, Sen, & Chervenak, 2020).The frequent visit aid is used to classifying pregnant women into low and high risk by predicting the complication ahead of time. The traditional approach was replaced by Focused Antenatal Care (FANC) a goal-oriented approach which was recommended by researcher in 2001 and adopted by WHO in 2002. During ANC visit, pregnant women are educated on the following important topics: nutrition, medication, lifestyle, exercise, personal and environmental hygiene, safety in the environment, etc. (Santos-Rocha et al, 2022). The extend to ANC service underutilization by pregnant women is based at the individual and family level, the crucial factors are; employment of the women, education of the women and spouse, marital status, house hold income, exposure to media, obstetrical complications, parity, age, religious belief, culture, and pre-conception of pregnancy. Among the social – demographic factors, the odds for underutilizing ANC services increased significantly for mothers with low educational attainment and from households with a low wealth index.

1.2 Problem statement

 Financial barriers are preventative care for which pregnant women are charged user fees according to the cost recovery scheme meanwhile the state heavily subsides the majority of ANC components. Globally, over 10% of all women do not have access to or are not using an effective method of contraception. It is estimated that satisfying the unmet need for the family planning alone could cut the number of maternal deaths by almost a third (Nagai, Bellizzi, & Murray, 2019).

Antenatal clinic, are a key strategy to decreasing maternal mortality in low income resource settings and it is important to pregnant women as it help prevent maternal and child mortality as well as pregnancy complications. Despite improvement in maternal and infant mortality, there are other factors which hinder these women from using ANC Services such as religion/cultural beliefs, poverty. Thus about 9,000 women lose their life during childbirth every year in Cameroon. Therefore it is necessary to explore pregnant women knowledge on the importance of ANC Services so as to come to a better understanding on the factors that hinders these women from attending ANC do pregnant women.

1.3 Research questions

– What is the knowledge on the importance of ANC amongst pregnant women that attend ANC at the Regional Hospital Buea?

–  What is the practice of pregnant women towards ANC in the Regional Hospital Buea?

– What are the challenges faced by pregnant women towards ANC in the Regional hospital Buea?

1.4 Research objectives

• To access knowledge on the importance of ANC amongst pregnant women attending ANC at the regional hospital Buea
• To examine the practice of pregnant women towards ANC in the regional hospital Buea
• To study challenges faced by pregnant women towards ANC in the regional hospital Buea.

1.5 Scope of the study

 study scope is on the knowledge, attitude, and practices of ANC services to pregnant women. It is peculiar to pregnant women that visits the Buea Regional Hospital for ANC services.