Evaluation of the quality of prenatal care based on the recommendations prenatal and birth humanization program

Abstract

The Prenatal Care and Birth Humanization Program (PHPN) establishes a minimum number of procedures to be provided to all pregnant women during prenatal care. This study aimed to analyze the quality of prenatal care in Sergipe based on the PHPN recommendations. This is a cross-sectional study, with a descriptive and analytic approach, using survey data from the Birth in Sergipe research, conducted from June 2015 to April 2016 with 768 puerperae proportionally distributed among all state maternity hospitals (n = 11). Data were collected from fa-ce-to-face interviews and patients’ prenatal care cards. The results showed a high coverage of prenatal care (99.3%; n =763), but little more than half of these women started their prenatal care within 16 weeks of gestation (57%; n =435), and 74.7% (n = 570) had six or more visits. We noted that 16.6% (n = 127) of pregnant women were at high risk for complications and almost half continued monitoring prenatal care with professional nurses. Around 61.3% were advised about the maternity care service of reference for delivery, and 29.4% sought more than one health service for childbirth. We concluded that there was a high prenatal care coverage in Sergipe, however, with issues concerning its adaptation to the PHPN.