Antenatal care before caesarean section in rural Turkey

This cross-sectional study was conducted at the state hospital in Gaziantep, rural Turkey, to assess the quality of antenatal care in women who underwent caesarean section (CS). Data collected from 581 women admitted for CS between October and December 2005 were retrospectively analysed and found that Turkish women preferred obstetricians to midwives for their antenatal care. Obstetricians chiefly consider antenatal care as a follow-up to ultrasound, and procedures such as weight monitoring, blood pressure measurement and blood analysis, all of which help to facilitate timely diagnosis of complications, were mostly overlooked. The belief that antenatal care is only for women with complications could be abolished through education and may help to encourage vaginal delivery. Pregnant women who receive antenatal care from obstetricians are more likely to undergo CS, thus greater collaboration between obstetricians and midwives is necessary in future to promote normal births.