Survey on situation of antenatal care in rural areas,China

Objective To comprehen sively understand the situation of antenatal care in Xinjiang and Anhui provinces and find out existing problems.Methods Married women 15-69 years old with pregnanth istory in Anhui and Xinjiang project provinces were surveyed with cluster random sampling method and the self designed questionnaire in January,2006.Results The utility ratio of antenatal care service in Anhui and Xinjiang provinces was significant increased with the time(P<0.05).But some problems and challenges still existed such as late starting of the first antenatal care and un-adequate times of antenatal care.After the year 2000,only 52.5% of the pregnant women could receive the first checkup during the first trmiester,and the percentage of women received noless than 5 times of checkup was 54.0% and the hospital delivery rate was only 68.1%.At the same time,there was a significant difference between Anhui and Xinjiang province.Conclusion The utilization and the quality of antenatal care service in the Anhui and Xinjiang province has remained at a lowlevel.Positively measures such as health education and the construction of obstetric department should be taken to improve the service quality of health care for pregnant and postpartum.