Promoting Dental Check-up for Pregnant Women

Abstract

Background: Dupak Public Health Center is one of the public health service facilities in Surabaya that provides integrateddental and oral health services. Dupak Public Health Center covers Dupak District area. Only 8.2% out of 366 pregnantwomen visited the dental poly from April 2017–April 2018. An epidemiological study reported that dental visitationin pregnant women in the Dupak Public Health Center was still very low. Lower knowledge levels of pregnant womenabout dental and oral health caused the low dental visitation in the dental poly. An intervention was needed to changethe negative behavior related to dental and oral health, especially in pregnant women. Purpose: To increase the dentalvisitation of pregnant women in the dental poly of the Dupak Public Health Center. Methods: The program adopted thehealth education strategy with a group approach. The group means cadres of pregnant women. Pregnant women learnedabout dental and oral health during pregnancy. Results: Eight pregnant women were attending the invitation. The pretest result showed that 71.60% of pregnant women had answered questions correctly, and the post-test result showed that88.75% of pregnant women had answered the questions correctly. Conclusion: This program is effective to increase theknowledge of pregnancy woman that will lead to dental visitation.