Description of the primary causes of stillbirth as pertains in the Offinso South Municipality of the Ashanti Region
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Date
2010-08-09
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Abstract
One of the major goals of the Ministry of Health, Ghana, is to reduce to the barest minimum, maternal and infant mortality and in achieving this, more effort and research need to be conducted into the primary causes of maternal mortality and infant mortality.
This study was undertaken between July and October, 2008, to describe the primary causes of stillbirth and the level of health education in the Offinso South Municipality of the Ashanti Region.
A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out to determine the factors have contributed to the problem of stillbirth and the level of health education in the municipality. Primary data were collected using in-depth interviews, open-ended questionnaire administration and focus group discussions.
Since certain category of women were targeted for data collection, convenience sampling methods were used to select the respondents, health personnel and the participants for the focus group discussions. A total of two hundred (200) female adults and twenty four (24) health personnel were interviewed.
The outcome of the study indicates that the nutritional status of the pregnant women in the municipality which was assessed using the dietary method of nutritional assessment by recall methods was quite encouraging; since most of them were eating to some extent a well balanced diet.
The antenatal care attendance was ok since according to W.H.O, (2002) the minimum number of attendance should be six and above, depending on the condition of the pregnant woman; The results of the analysis showed that majority of the respondents representing 99 (49.50%) claimed they attended antenatal clinic four times
throughout the period of pregnancy which could be described as okay for safe delivery and survival of both the child and the mother.
Furthermore, the study established that a far larger percentage of 94% of respondents used local herbs to either prepare food or enema few weeks to delivery with the belief that it would help ensure safe and smooth delivery (which is very risky, looking at the effect some of these herbs could have on the fetus).
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Board Of Post Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fufilment of the requirement for the degree f Master of Science in Health Education and Promotion.