Abstract
Maternal and child health care has been a big challenge in Indonesia. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused considerable restrictions to maternal and newborn healthcare services. Consequently, community health services faced changes in policies such as limiting antenatal care visits, which resulted in irregular health examination for pregnant women. Therefore, this study aims to examine the frequency of the village midwives’ house visits during the COVID-19 pandemic and the appropriate routine examination of pregnant women. This is an observational study conducted from March to late October 2020. Data were collected in Pinrang sub-district of South Sulawesi using cluster random sampling targeted at pregnant women in six villages. The Chi square test was used to identify possible association between both variables. Out of the 63 pregnant women who participated in this study, more than 54% reported to have been visited and received medical examinations. The results shows that there is a significant relationship between the number of visits and appropriate examination with p value 0.04 and potential risk OR 4.860 (95% CI: 0.956 to 24.703). The village midwives’ visitation frequency was quite high during the COVID-19 but a potential risk was recorded for pregnant women who had incomplete routine examination. Therefore, there is need for collaborative effort between the local government and related sectors to improve maternal home health care services.
Highlights
Antenatal care is a regular visit by pregnant women for checkups at a health facility to improve maternal and newborn health status
Healthcare services are provided to pregnant women on a regular basis using predetermined schedule aimed at early detection of abnormalities and risks that arise during pregnancy
This study showed that antenatal care and general health check-up for pregnant women in the research area was appropriately conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Antenatal care is a regular visit by pregnant women for checkups at a health facility to improve maternal and newborn health status. Healthcare services are provided to pregnant women on a regular basis using predetermined schedule aimed at early detection of abnormalities and risks that arise during pregnancy. In Indonesia, healthcare services for pregnant women are expected to meet the minimum frequency in each trimester, such as, at least once in the first trimester (0-12 weeks of gestation), once in the second trimester (12-24 weeks of gestational), and twice in the third trimester (24 weeks of gestation) (Primadi et al, 2019) This model focused on the quality of services received by expectant mothers compared to the quantity (Konlan et al, 2020). There is need to ensure antenatal care from the gestational period to parturition
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