1Assistant Professor, Department of Community Health, St. John's Medical College, Sarjapur Road, John Nagar, Bangalore, India
2Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Research Institute (MGMCRI)
3Assistant Professor, Department of Community Health, St. John's Medical College, Sarjapur Road, John Nagar, Bangalore, India
4Associate Professor, Department of Community Health, St. John's Medical College, Sarjapur Road, John Nagar, Bangalore, India
5Additional Professor, Department of Community Health, St. John's Medical College, Sarjapur Road, John Nagar, Bangalore, India
*Corresponding Author: Dr Surekha A Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Research Institute (MGMCRI) Contact No.: 9972478291 Email: surecommed87@gmail.com
Online published on 5 May, 2018.
Antenatal care is a type of preventative care with the goal of providing regular check-ups that allow doctors or midwives to treat and prevent potential health problems throughout the course of the pregnancy while promoting healthy lifestyles that benefit both mother and child.
To assess and compare perinatal and postnatal outcomes among pregnant women based on the quality of antenatal care at a rural primary health care setting.
This was a longitudinal study, carried out among mothers who had availed antenatal services at a rural hospital, covering 14 villages in Anekal Taluk of Bangalore Urban District, between 2009 to 2013. Details of antenatal care received by the mothers were documented from hospital records. The quality of antenatal care received by the mothers was assessed. The mothers were then contacted in person and after obtaining informed consent, a pretested semi structured questionnaire was administered to record perinatal outcomes.
Around 60% of the women had received only Basic antenatal care, 24.6% had received Basic antenatal care along with blood investigations and only 15.4% of the women underwent an ultrasound in addition. Adverse perinatal and neonatal outcomes like stillbirth or neonatal deaths, preterm delivery, low birth weight, maternal postpartum complications and neonatal complications were significantly lower as the quality of antenatal care improved.
In a primary health care setting, better perinatal and postnatal outcomes were found among women undergoing routine laboratory investigations with or without ultrasound, in addition to basic antenatal care.
Perinatal and Postnatal outcomes, antenatal care, rural health care, India
