scholarly journals Food taboos of malay pregnant women attending antenatal check-up at the maternal health clinic in Kuala Lumpur

Author(s):  
Maznorila Mohamad ◽  
Chong Yee Ling
Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 2281
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Sarhaddi ◽  
Iman Azimi ◽  
Sina Labbaf ◽  
Hannakaisa Niela-Vilén ◽  
Nikil Dutt ◽  
...  

Pregnancy is a unique time when many mothers gain awareness of their lifestyle and its impacts on the fetus. High-quality care during pregnancy is needed to identify possible complications early and ensure the mother’s and her unborn baby’s health and well-being. Different studies have thus far proposed maternal health monitoring systems. However, they are designed for a specific health problem or are limited to questionnaires and short-term data collection methods. Moreover, the requirements and challenges have not been evaluated in long-term studies. Maternal health necessitates a comprehensive framework enabling continuous monitoring of pregnant women. In this paper, we present an Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based system to provide ubiquitous maternal health monitoring during pregnancy and postpartum. The system consists of various data collectors to track the mother’s condition, including stress, sleep, and physical activity. We carried out the full system implementation and conducted a real human subject study on pregnant women in Southwestern Finland. We then evaluated the system’s feasibility, energy efficiency, and data reliability. Our results show that the implemented system is feasible in terms of system usage during nine months. We also indicate the smartwatch, used in our study, has acceptable energy efficiency in long-term monitoring and is able to collect reliable photoplethysmography data. Finally, we discuss the integration of the presented system with the current healthcare system.


2021 ◽  
pp. 140349482110224
Author(s):  
Mikael O. Ekblad ◽  
Hanna P. Wallin ◽  
Marjukka Pajulo ◽  
Päivi E. Korhonen

Aims: The primary aim of the study is to explore different factors affecting parents’ smoking behaviour, and especially how smoking may be connected with individual differences in the psychological process of becoming a parent. In the current paper, we present the study design together with basic information on the study population. Methods: The Central Satakunta Maternity and Child Health Clinic (KESALATU) Study is an ongoing prospective follow-up study in primary healthcare of the Satakunta region of southwest Finland. Families were recruited during their first maternity clinic visit between 1 September 2016 and 31 December 2019, and participation will continue until the child is 1.5 years of age. The study combines different sources and types of data: e.g. routine data obtained from primary healthcare clinic records, specific parental self-report data and data from a new exhaled carbon monoxide meter indicating maternal smoking. The data are collected using frequently repeated assessments both during pregnancy and postnatally. The methods cover the following areas of interest: family background factors (including smoking and alcohol use), self-reported parental–foetal/infant attachment and mentalization, self-reported stress, depression and quality of life. Results: 589 pregnant women and their partners were asked to participate in the study during the collection time period. The final study population consisted of 248 (42.1%) pregnant women and 160 (27.1%) partners. Conclusions: The new methods and study design have the potential to increase our understanding about the link between early parenting psychology, prenatal psychosocial risk factors and parental health behaviour.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dereje Tsegaye ◽  
Dessalegn Tamiru ◽  
Tefera Belachew

Abstract Background Poor maternal nutrition adversely affects pregnancy and birth outcomes. In many societies, there are dietary restrictions due to misconceptions or food taboos during pregnancy which consequently results in the depletion of important nutrients. These cultural malpractices and beliefs can influence the dietary intake of pregnant women which subsequently affects the birth outcome. The study aimed at exploring the extent of food taboos and misconceptions during pregnancy in rural communities of Illu Aba Bor Zone, Southwest Ethiopia. Methods A qualitative study was conducted using an in-depth interviews of key informants and focus group discussions among purposively selected pregnant women and their husbands, health care workers, health extension workers, and elderly people. Data were transcribed verbatim, thematized; color-coded, and analyzed manually using the thematic framework method. Result Thorough reading and review of the transcripts generated three major themes. The primary theme was the belief and practice of taboos related to the intake of certain food items during pregnancy. Pregnant women, their husbands, and mothers-in-law believed that certain foods should be avoided during pregnancy. The second theme was foods that were held as taboo and the reason attached to it. The most common food items held as taboo were related to the consumption of vegetables like cabbage, pumpkin, milk and milk products, sugar cane, fruits like bananas and avocado and egg. The main reasons to avoid these foods were beliefs that it can be plastered on the fetal head, making fatty baby which is difficult for delivery. The third theme was the reasons underlying adherence to food taboos which is deeply embedded in the person’s believes and attitudes of the pregnant women, who were nested within the influence of the social environment surrounding them and the traditional beliefs and values of the society in general. Conclusions The results showed a widespread practice of food taboos during pregnancy in the study area. The finding suggested that there is a need for strengthening the nutrition counseling components of antenatal care follow-up and planning comprehensive nutrition education through involving important others to dispel such traditional beliefs and prevent food taboo practices in the study community.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 215013272199689
Author(s):  
Shewangizaw Hailemariam ◽  
Wubetu Agegnehu ◽  
Misganaw Derese

Introduction: Evidences suggest a significant decline in maternal health service uptake following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Ethiopia. However, COVID-19 related factors impacting the service uptake are not sufficiently addressed. Hence, the current study was intended to explore COVID-19 related factors influencing antenatal care service uptake in rural Ethiopia. Methods: A community-based qualitative study was conducted from September 25/2020 to November 25/2020 among selected pregnant women residing in rural districts of Bench-Sheko Zone, and healthcare providers working in the local health care facilities. Six focus group discussions and 9 in-depth interviews were made between pregnant women, and health care providers, respectively. Data was collected by health education and behavioral science professionals who also have experience in qualitative data collection procedure. Data were transcribed, translated, and analyzed thematically using Open Code 4.0 software. Result: The study revealed several COVID-19 related factors influencing the uptake of antenatal care service during the pandemic. Health facility related barriers, perceived poor quality of care during the pandemic, government measures against COVID-19, anxiety related to the pandemic, and risk minimization were the identified factors possibly influencing the current antenatal care service uptake among women in rural Bench-Sheko Zone. Conclusion: COVID-19 preventive measures, and health facility related factors and individual factors were responsible for the current decline in antenatal care service uptake. Preserving essential health care service is critical to prevent avoidable losses of maternal and child lives during the pandemic period. Hence, programs and strategies designed to maintain maternal health services particularly, antenatal care service have better take the above determinants into consideration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 316-322
Author(s):  
Nurul Nabilah Ahmad Fadzil ◽  
Azura Abdul Halain ◽  
Santhi A/P Yew Roan Nee ◽  
Soh Kim Lam ◽  
Salimah Japar

Background Prenatal supplementation has been introduced to pregnant women during early pregnancy to prevent complication to both mother and fetus. The complications include anaemia, postpartum haemorrhage, low birth weight and fetal defects. Aim To assess compliance with vitamin and mineral supplementation in pregnant women. Methods A cross-sectional design with simple random sampling was used in this study with 100 respondents who attended the maternal and child clinic in Selangor, Malaysia. Findings The findings showed that 86 respondents (86%) were compliance towards vitamin and mineral supplementation, whereas 35 respondents (35%) were non-compliance mainly due to forgetfulness. The result indicated a significant association between compliance with race (p=0.02), occupation (p<0.01), household income (p=0.02), education (p<0.01), parity (p<0.01) and trimester (p=0.02). Conclusion Majority of the respondents acknowledge that side effects and forgetfulness were the main influencing factors towards non-compliance.


Author(s):  
Patricia Tumbelaka ◽  
Ralalicia Limato ◽  
Sudirman Nasir ◽  
Din Syafruddin ◽  
Hermen Ormel ◽  
...  

Background: Maternal health promotion is a task allocated to the kader (community health volunteers) in the community integrated health services called Posyandu. Yet, they are inadequately trained to perform this task. We present an analysis of the kader as maternal health promoters after their health promotion training with use of counselling card. Methods: Between March-April 2015, 14 participatory workshops were conducted and 188 kader in four villages in Ciranjang sub-district were trained. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions from community members, health care providers and policy makers in the four villages. A total of 44 interviews were conducted prior to health promotion training and 48 interviews post- training. In 46 Posyandu, kader were observed during their practice of health promotion within 3 consecutive months of post training. Data was transcribed and analysed in NVivo 10. Results: Most kader acknowledged that health promotion training improved their knowledge of maternal health and counselling skills and changed their attitude towards pregnant women at the Posyandu. They could confidently negotiate health messages and importance of health facility delivery with antenatal women. The kader also found the counselling cards helped pregnant women understand the health messages more clearly. The participatory training method involving role play and direct discussions boost kader confidence to deliver health promotion. As a result, the kader gained community appreciation which enhanced their motivation about their job. Conclusions: Appropriate health promotion training, provided the kader with adequate knowledge and skills to become resourceful maternal health promoters in the community.  


10.2196/15890 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. e15890
Author(s):  
Jessica L Watterson ◽  
Diego Castaneda ◽  
Caricia Catalani

Background Antenatal care (ANC) has the potential to improve maternal health, but it remains underutilized and unevenly implemented in many low- and middle-income countries. Increasingly, text messaging programs for pregnant women show evidence that they can improve the utilization of ANC during pregnancy; however, gaps remain regarding how implementation affects outcomes. Objective This study aimed to assess facilitators and barriers to implementation of an SMS text messaging intervention for pregnant women in Samoa and to assess its impact on ANC attendance. Methods This study took place in Upolu, Samoa, from March to August 2014 and employed a quasi-experimental design. Half (n=3) of the public antenatal clinics on the island offered adult pregnant women the SMS text messaging intervention, with 552 women registering for the messages. At the comparison clinics (n=3), 255 women registered and received usual care. The intervention consisted of unidirectional text messages containing health tips and appointment reminders. The outcome of interest was the number of attended antenatal visits. Implementation data were also collected through a survey of the participating midwives (n=7) and implementation notes. Data analysis included a comparison of women’s baseline characteristics between the two groups, followed by the use of negative binomial regressions to test for associations between participation in the intervention and increased ANC attendance, controlling for individual characteristics and accounting for the clustering of women within clinics. Results The comparison of ANC attendance rates found that women receiving the SMS text messaging intervention attended 15% fewer ANC visits than the comparison group (P=.004), controlling for individual characteristics and clustering. Data analysis of the implementation process suggests that barriers to successful implementation include women registering very late in pregnancy, sharing their phone with others, and inconsistent explanation of the intervention to women. Conclusions These results suggest that unidirectional text messages do not encourage, and might even discourage, ANC attendance in Samoa. Interpreted with other evidence in the literature, these results suggest that SMS text messaging interventions are more effective when they facilitate better communication between patients and health workers. This study is an important contribution to our understanding of when SMS text messaging interventions are and are not effective in improving maternal health care utilization.


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