Advocacy and WHO Standard for Antenatal Care
Definition of Antenatal Care:
Antenatal care is the branch of medicine that deals with the care of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the recuperative period following delivery. Antenatal care means the medical care that women receive when they are pregnant.
Advocacy for Antenatal Care:
Advocacy for antenatal care are-
- Make regular visits to the community to explain correctly the aim of antenatal care to an individual pregnant woman.
- Work with others in the community to identify pregnant women and motivate her to seek early antenatal care.
- Using appropriate two way communication, discuss the advantages of antenatal care with small community group.
- Using two-way communication correctly describe the procedure that take place in the antenatal clinic to elderly members of the community.
- Stress that the aim of antenatal care is to achieve a healthy mother and a healthy baby.
- Inform the pregnant women of the signs of pregnancy.
- Identify and assist other community health care providers to keep register of all pregnant Women.
- Promote and explain the use of HBMR/pregnancy records (WHO, 1999).
Antenatal Care Standard of World Health Organization (WHO):
It includes-
- A minimum of eight contacts are recommended to reduce perinatal mortality and improve women’s experience of care.
- Counseling about healthy eating and keeping physically active during pregnancy.
- Daily oral iron and folic acid supplementation with 30 mg to 60 mg of elemental iron and 400 µg (0.4 mg) folic acid for pregnant women to prevent maternal anaemia, puerperal sepsis, low birth weight, and preterm birth.
- Tetanus toxoid vaccination is recommended for all pregnant women, depending on previous tetanus vaccination exposure, to prevent neonatal mortality from tetanus.
- One ultrasound scan before 24 weeks’ gestation (early ultrasound) is recommended for pregnant women to estimate gestational age, improve detection of fetal anomalies and multiple pregnancies, reduce induction of labour for post-term pregnancy, and improve a woman’s pregnancy experience.
- Health-care providers should ask all pregnant women about their use of alcohol and other substances (past and present) as early as possible in the pregnancy and at every antenatal visit.
Different Types of Antenatal Check Up:
All the necessary antenatal checkups are listed in the below:
- Weight and height checks in pregnancy,
- Antenatal urine tests,
- Blood pressure tests in pregnancy,
- Blood tests in pregnancy,
- The blood tests may be offered include:
Maria Khatun Mona is a Founder and Editor of Nursing Exercise Blog. She is a Nursing and Midwifery Expert. Currently she is working as a Registered Nurse at Evercare Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has great passion in writing different articles on Nursing and Midwifery. Mail her at “maria.mona023@gmail.com”