Antenatal Care Utilization of Mothers in Selected Cities in Bicol Region: A Quantitative Study

Abstract

Background. Antenatal Care (ANC) is an essential mandatory preventive care service freely given to pregnant women by the Philippine government. Despite the available ANC services in the country, not all pregnant women still avail of the service.Objective. The study determined the socio-demographic profile of mothers, their ANC services utilization, and the different problems encountered during their antenatal care.Methods. A descriptive research design was used. Purposive sampling was employed to identify the population of the study: women of reproductive age, 18-45 years old, and who had a live birth for the last three years regardless of utilization, partial utilization, or non-utilization of ANC services. Mothers who were currently pregnant and had a history of abortion or stillbirth delivery were excluded from participation. Proportionate sampling was computed to get the sample size: 334 mothers from Iriga City and 392 from Tabaco City. The survey questionnaire was based on the ANC guidelines of the DOH. The statistical treatment used was frequency counting, percentage, and ranking in data analysis.Results. The mothers in Iriga City and Tabaco City were ages 23-27 years old who had 1-3 children, were single but living with partners, and in a nuclear type of family with 4-6 members, were unemployed/housewives, and belonged to a low-income family with >P7,890 family income. In Iriga City, the majority were high school graduates, while in Tabaco City, most were graduates of vocational courses; and elementary and high school undergraduates. There were excellent assessments for history-taking, physical examination, and care provisions in both cities, except for oral health care examination, tests for syphilis, stool examination, acetic acid wash, safe sex education, and oral health checkups and prophylaxis. The identified problems were financial constraints, lack of support system, busy taking care of the kids, sickness, forgetfulness, unwanted pregnancy, drunkard husband, difficult first trimester, bad attitude of midwives, nurses, doctors, and unequal treatment of poor patients.Conclusions. Mothers in both cities were young adults with a low education level who lived with their partners in a poor small nuclear family. Not all ANC services were excellently utilized. Among these were the poor utilization of the tests for syphilis, stool, acetic acid wash; oral health care examination; safe sex education; and oral health checkups and prophylaxis. There were various problems that mothers encountered when seeking ANC services, the most common of which were financial and personal issues.