Utilization of Antenatal Care Services Among Mothers of Dhanusa, Nepal

Abstract

Antenatal care (ANC) majorly offers women with maternal along with fetal screening for optimizing the level of providing medical or social interventions available where ever indicated.
Cross-sectional study was conducted in Bateshwar Rural municipality of Dhanusha district.
The study population were 184 mothers who gave birth to their child in last one year. 10%
pretesting was conducted. Proportional sampling method was conducted approximately taking
60 mothers from each ward. SPSS 16 was applied for analyzing the data. About half (45.1%)
completed ANC visits as per the protocol of GoN visiting 4 times. Almost all mothers
(98.36%) reported that they received counseling about danger signs of pregnancy during ANC
visit. (98.36%) of respondents reported the availability of health workers all the time when
they visited for ANC. Despite of total proportion of mothers visiting for ANC, half of the
mothers did not visit for ANC illustrating a need of mobilizing Female community health volunteers for conducting awareness raising events on the importance of ANC, provision of ANC
protocols and incentives.
Keywords: ANC; Counselling; Health services; Incentives; Maternal Health