Abstract
AimThe study assessed the return for prenatal care and childbirth services among Nigerian women using primary health care facilities.DesignA descriptive cross‐sectional approach was employed for the study.MethodsA total of 730 participants randomly recruited systematically from 21 purposively selected primary health care facilities in Ibadan, Nigeria were studied. A questionnaire and a checklist were used for data collection. The collection of data spanned three months (April to June, 2014). The data were analysed descriptively and inferentially while the results were presented in frequency tables.ResultsThe women's mean age was 28 ± 5.3 years. Out of the 730 women studied, 92.6% received prenatal care. The mean difference between the number of prenatal care registration and the number of childbirths was 76.5. Poor environmental hygiene of facilities, statistically significant cost of services and non‐availability of 24‐hr service were implicated for dissatisfaction with care received by the women and consequent poor return rate for childbirth.
Highlights
Women from low socio‐economic background are vul‐ nerable to pregnancy‐related complications (Iliyasu, Abubakar, Galadanci, & Aliyu, 2010; Obiechina, Okolie, Eleje, Okechukwu, & Anemeje, 2011)
Paired t tests were performed to establish the degree of statistically significant differences among quality rat‐ ings of facilities by participants, between populations of prenatal women versus women who returned to the primary health care (PHC) facilities under study and population of babies immunized versus childbirth un‐ dertaken at the PHC facilities under study
The findings revealed that the women rated the other places of childbirth higher than the PHC facilities under study
Summary
Women from low socio‐economic background are vul‐ nerable to pregnancy‐related complications (Iliyasu, Abubakar, Galadanci, & Aliyu, 2010; Obiechina, Okolie, Eleje, Okechukwu, & Anemeje, 2011) The peculiarity of their vulnerability predisposes them to finding quicker and cheaper avenues to seek health care. There is still tenacious adherence to traditional model of antenatal care requiring multiple clinic visits (Aluko & Oluwatosin, 2008). Most childbirth undertaken in the informal birthing centres are conducted by un‐ trained attendants Such births are characterized by higher perinatal mortality than those undertaken in hospitals or PHC facilities (Owolabi et al, 2008; Ziraba, Madise, Mills, Kyobutungi, & Ezeh, 2009). Based on the foregoing, the women's decision to either return or not return to formal maternity centres, where accessed prenatal care may directly or indirectly link to the outcome of pregnancy (Ziraba et al, 2009)
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