FACTORS INFLUENCING BIRTH PREPAREDNESS AND COMPLICATIONS READINESS AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN ATTENDING ANTENATAL CLINIC IN PRIMARY HEALTH CENTRE, AKURE SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, ONDO STATE

This study examined factors influencing birth preparedness and complication readiness among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in primary health centre, Akure south local government area, Ondo State. Four research questions and two hypotheses were formulated and tested for the work. The study involved the use of descriptive survey research design using questionnaire to generate data. The target population pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in primary health centre, Akure South Local Government Area, Ondo State. The personal data of the respondents included their educational background, ethnicity, age and religion. A total of 120 pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in primary health centre, Akure were used as the sample sizes for the study. Simple percentage was used to answer research questions. The two postulated Research Null hypotheses of this work were tested using the Pearson Moment Correlation at 0.05 level of significance. The results shows that although most of the pregnant women had good knowledge of birth preparedness and complication readiness, knowledge only translated to practice for less than 20% of the study participants.Findings showed that some of the factors influencing birth preparedness and complication readiness among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in primary health centre, Akure South Local Government Area, Ondo State is lack of transportation and lack of transportation particularly in the night may cause some delay in reaching the chosen place of delivery for the pregnant women. Also lack of blood donor and lack of support / assistance from the family members, relatives and friends may prevents pregnant from delivery in the hospital. Some of the probable solutions includes adequate preparations and provision of blood donor should be made by their family member, relatives and friends before the day of delivery of their loved ones. Furthermore, there was significant relationship between the knowledge and practice of birth preparedness and complication readiness among pregnant women. There was no significant association between the level of knowledge of birth preparedness and complication readiness and the socio-demographic characteristics of the pregnant women. The study recommended that there is a need for slight shift in focus on maternal and childcare projects of government. Investments in improving awareness on danger signs appear to have paid off, however improving access by lowering financial requirements is imperative. This means that the ministry of health should do a sensitization more on birth preparedness among women of reproductive age to discourage cultural belief than can harper safe delivery.