Conference abstract

Nigerian women´s perception on the effectiveness of antenatal education in preparation for motherhood

Pan African Medical Journal - Conference Proceedings. 2022:12(16).17 Feb 2022.
doi: 10.11604/pamj-cp.2022.12.16.1266
Archived on: 17 Feb 2022
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Keywords: Antenatal education, women, perception, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum
Oral presentation

Nigerian women´s perception on the effectiveness of antenatal education in preparation for motherhood

Cynthia Adaku Attah1,2,&, Chidinma Egbichi Israel1, Anthonia Ukamaka Chinweuba1, Oluwadamilare Akingbade2,3

1Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Science and Technology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria, 2Institute of Nursing Research Nigeria, Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria, 3The Nethersole School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong (SAR), China

&Corresponding author

Introduction: antenatal education, which is one of the care activities delivered during antenatal care visits, has an important role to play in preventing maternal and child mortality. It aims to ensure optimum health of the mother and baby. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of antenatal education as perceived by women who have had at least one pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum experience in Uwani Cottage Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria.

Methods: a cross-sectional descriptive design was adopted for this study. This study involved postnatal mothers attending an immunization clinic at the hospital. 306 postpartum women were selected through convenience sampling. Descriptive statistics were conducted for all study measures using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. The collected data were subjected to descriptive statistics to generate the frequency of the responses, mean and standard deviations.

Results/Findings: findings revealed that there is an overall good perception of effectiveness of antenatal education on pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. 77.2% of the respondents had a positive opinion on what was the content of antenatal education. 66.4% of the participants had a good perception of the effectiveness of antenatal education on pregnancy, childbirth (96.6%) and the postpartum period (82.2%). Nevertheless, only 51.3% of the participants agreed that family planning was a content of antenatal education while majority (77.9%) also said cord care was not included in antenatal education received. In addition, majority of the participants opined that antenatal education was not effective in terms of coping with length of hospital stay after childbirth (Mean ± SD = 2.45 ± 1.23), using different breastfeeding techniques (Mean ± SD=2.47 ± 1.14) and bonding with their baby (Mean ± SD = 2.43 ± 1.22).

Conclusion/Implications for nursing: the gap in what constitutes content of antenatal education and its effectiveness identified in this study places a demand on the nurses and midwives, who serve as health educators to improve on their education strategies in order consolidate on the grounds achieved so far and re-orient as many mothers as possible, thus improving antenatal care attendance, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences.