Pregnant Women’s Health Practices and Self-reported Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes in a Tertiary Hospital in Northern Nigeria: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Health practices during pregnancy refer to those activities and habits of pregnant women which impact their health. These practices can affect maternal and foetal health, and influence pregnancy outcomes. Objectives: The study was aimed at investigating pregnant women’s health practices and self-reported adverse pregnancy outcomes (APOs). Methods: The research was a retrospective cross-sectional analytic study. The population of the study was pregnant women attending Ante-Natal Clinic in Ahmad Sani Yariman Bakura Specialist Hospital. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire. Frequencies and percentages, Spearman rank order correlation, and chi-square were used in data analysis. Results: The majority (62.3%) of the respondents were having a moderate level of health practices, and there was no respondent with a high level of health practices. There were significant weak negative correlations between the health practices and all the APOs (P < 0.01) except in neonatal death (P > 0.05). Conclusions: The health practices of the pregnant women were mostly moderate. There were weak negative significant correlations between pregnant women's health practices and APOs.