Prenatal Care Barriers in an Inner-city Neighborhood of Houston, Texas

The objective of this qualitative pilot study was to explore barriers to prenatal care among women (aged 17 to 30 years) with pregnancy experience who resided in an underserved and predominantly African American neighborhood in Houston, Texas. The authors conducted 5 focus group discussions with, and collected demographic information from, the 32 participants. Discussions were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed manually. The data analysis suggested 5 key barriers to prenatal care services among the study populations: unplanned pregnancy, lack of information, lack of support system (eg, lack of emotional and instrumental support from family members), psychosocial challenges (eg, emotions and stress-related to the condition of pregnancy), and economic hardships (eg, lack of money to maintain healthy pregnancy and basic needs). Addressing the causes of unplanned pregnancy, such as low risk perception, behavior-related causes, and attitude toward pregnancy, may be helpful to improve the utilization of prenatal care by underserved women.