European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Background: Educated women tend to have a greater awareness of the existence of ANC services , more aware of health problems, know more about the availability of health care services, and utilize the information more effectively than non-educated women . Moreover, higher levels of education tend to positively affect health-seeking behaviors, and education may increase a woman’s control over her pregnancy and  expose women to more health education messages and campaigns, enabling them to recognize danger signs and complications and take appropriate action. In this study, We tried to analyze to what level the maternal education can influence the antenatal care services and child care.
Methods: A community-based cross sectional study was conducted on 93 randomly selected mothers who have children less than 7years by using a pre-tested structured questionnaire for data collection at  various tribal villages, at an average 25kms away from  Adilabad town  from April-October 2019 . Analysis was done using SPSS for windows version 16, Microsoft excel and Open epi website.
Results: Out of 93 study subjects, 19.3%(18) of the study subjects were not registered for the antenatal services. Higher the maternal education higher the age at pregnancy (p<0.05), more preference for deliveries by doctors(p<0.05) ,more the frequency of exclusive breast feeding, long lasting breast feeding more than a year (p<0.05) , less number of children with wasting(p<0.05).
Conclusion and Recommendation: This study revealed that utilization of ANC services were relatively better for the mother’s educated higher than secondary school but  they are still low. Educational status is important in having more health seeking behavior .  In this study ,it proves that  health education is more important  than the mere school education  which can help to improve knowledge on ANC