‘Ante-Natal, Key To Mother, Child’s Wellbeing’

Ante natal care (ANC) or prenatal care is not just health care provided for pregnant women, but also provides education and counselling on pregnancy and its related matters. Such matters include nutrition and physical health and care of both mother and baby.

A senior nursing officer at the General Hospital, Okrika, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said getting antenatal care as soon as a woman discovers she is pregnant is key to her wellbeing and that of her baby.

According to her, this is because most women do know they are pregnant in the first month, saying that keeping antenatal appointments is also very important as it can help doctors identify problems and nip them in the bud.

“The doctor takes a record of the baby’s measurements and the woman’s blood pressure, and gives her a reliable due date for her baby during her antenatal visits”, she explained.

This will enable the doctor quickly detect intrauterine growth restriction, pre-eclampsia, or other such complications and make quick interventions to stall the anomaly,” she continued.

The nursing officer who attends to about 28 to 33 pregnant women daily, said that ANC, when started early in pregnancy, during the first trimester, reduces sharply the risk of a still-birth and maternal mortality.

“Though, for majority of women, pregnancy will proceed smoothly without any of these complications, no one can predict who will be affected by late pregnancy complications”. She thus advised that the safest bet is to keep going for ANC to help the doctor monitor the pregnancy as adequately as possible.

On nutrition for expectant mothers, she recommends supplementing the diet with folic acid for three months before pregnancy, and then for at least the first three months of pregnancy, adding that prenatal supplements often contain high amounts of folic acid and other compounds, such as iron and vitamin A.

“But, women should take care in choosing a supplement, to make sure that no more than 5,000 IU of vitamin A is included”, she warned.

Researchers have shown that the right amount of folic acid can help prevent certain types of birth defects and other problems during pregnancy.