Objective To assess women's experience of group prenatal care in a rural Nigerian community. Methods In an observational study, consenting pregnant women were enrolled in a group prenatal care program based on the CenteringPregnancy model from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, in Tsibiri, Nigeria. Women were interviewed before joining the group and postnatally. A predesigned pro forma was used to assess group behavior during sessions. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to data. Results In total, 161 women enrolled, and 54 of 72 scheduled prenatal sessions took place. The average number of visits was three per woman, with good group interaction and cohesion. Mothers who could mention at least five out of eight danger signs of pregnancy increased from 1.4% (2) to 13.3% (14) (P<0.001, 95% CI 4.28–19.52), while mean knowledge score for danger signs increased from 31% to 47.8% (P<0.001, 95% CI 0.86–2.16). Commitment to birth preparedness plans was impressive. The mothers enjoyed the group sessions and shared the lessons they learned with others. Conclusion Group prenatal care was feasible and acceptable to women in the present study setting. Comparative trials would be helpful to demonstrate the benefits of the tested model in low‐income settings.
Introduction Certain traditional practices which have negative effects on maternal and child health continue to be practiced in sub-Saharan African countries. A survey was carried out in a rural village in Nigeria to understand the scale and range of these practices. Methods This was a cross-sectional study in which trained interviewers administered pre-tested questionnaires on child-bearing women using questionnaires embedded on android devices. Results The median age of marriage and pregnancy were 15 and 16 years respectively. Home births were high (90.4%) while non-skilled birth attendant was 87.4%. The community had a son preference index ratio of 1:4.1. Up to 81.5% of mothers responded that one form of unhygienic traditional procedure or the other was performed on their children. Time to initiation of breast feeding was in hours in the majority (76.3%) of mothers, with a high rate of use of prelacteal feeds (85.2%). Being an adolescent mother (AOR 0.403, 95%CI 0.203, 0,797) and utilizing a skilled provider at birth (AOR 0.245, 95%CI 0.088, 0.683) were associated with less likelihood of having an unhygienic procedure performed on children. Conclusion The findings of our study suggest that traditional practices which could have negative effects on maternal and child health are still ongoing in the study community. Child protection laws and safeguarding principles could help to reduce these practices and would need to be developed and implemented in these settings where these practices are still prevalent.
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