Antenatal care, attitudes, and practices

This paper discusses attitudes and practices of antenatal care in Saudi Arabia, based on the results of the maternal and child health survey of 1991. The survey covered a cluster random sample of 6306 households, with 6294 ever-married Saudi women 15-49 years of age out of whom 1050 were pregnant. The interview questionnaire included maternal care data on current pregnancies and births in the sample, totaling 4777 children less than 5 years old. Coverage of antenatal care and frequency of visits among pregnancies identified, by whom and where, and reasons for not attending antenatal services by age, urban-rural, geographical, and educational differentials. Proportions pregnant at the time of the survey were 17 per cent; antenatal care attendance for the whole sample reached 86 per cent; frequencies of one or two visits were 37 per cent; and three or four visits 25 per cent; those checked by a physician were 85 per cent, while 88 per cent attended governmental facilities. Those with timely attendance were 85 per cent. However, almost one-third of non-attenders (30 per cent) believed they did not need antenatal care. Though utilization of antenatal care services is already high, it has to be further increased through health education and publicity, emphasizing the couples role.