Article Sidebar
Article Details
The entire contents of the Tropical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology are protected under Indian and international copyrights. The Journal, however, grants to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, perform and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. The journal also grants the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal non-commercial use.
This journal content is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
Main Article Content
Intentions of Registered Antenatal Clinic Patients About Utilizing Labour and Delivery Services if They Tested HIV-Positive
Abstract
Background: Nigeria bears a sizeable proportion of the global HIV burden; mother to child transmission as a major contributor and prevention of mother to child transmission the hope for a HIV-free generation.
Objective: To find evaluate how booked antenatal attendees intend to utilize the labour and delivery services of the state teaching hospital in Abakaliki in their index pregnancies and if they tested HIV positive.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey of the attendees to the booking clinic. Data on patients' ages, marital status, past obstetric history, where clients would deliver their index pregnancies normally
and if they tested positive to HIV, and the reasons behind their decisions, were collected with pretested self-administered questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 15.
Results: Four hundred and twenty-three (84.6%) of the questionnaires were analyzed. There were 288 patients who had been previously pregnant, of whom 274 (95.1%) booked for antenatal care, with 90.5%
of the booking occurring after the first trimester. About 16.7% delivered in facilities without skilled professional care. A total of 90.8% of the respondents desired to deliver their index pregnancies in the teaching hospital because the hospital is equipped for emergency obstetric care. If HIV positive in index pregnancy, 93.9% will prefer to deliver in the teaching hospital mainly to prevent mother to child transmission. However, 6.1% of the respondents did not desire to deliver in the teaching hospital even if
positive, with some even preferring to deliver at home.
Conclusion: A HIV-free generation can be achieved if pregnant mothers are encouraged to utilize labour and delivery services that help prevent mother to child transmission of HIV by provision of free maternal services, conduction of staff education to correct unfriendliness, refitting the labour and delivery wards, introduction of community PMTCT, continued awareness creation and economic empowerment.
Keywords: Utilization, Labour, Booking, Antenatal Clients, Nigeria
