The follow-up of pregnancy in the province of Salamanca
Santos de Vega, N.; Montero García, C.; Lajas Susaño, J.A.; Ramos Delgado, E.; Gómez Merino, T.
Atencion Primaria 9(1): 36; 38-40
1992
ISSN/ISBN: 0212-6567 PMID: 1308448 Document Number: 396758
To discover the level of health care accorded to pregnant women, the type of professional who attends them, and to what extent guidelines proposed for monitoring pregnancies are carried through. A transversal, retrospective, observational study: without a control and with a random sample. SITE. The data were obtained in a Public Hospital and came from women who had been monitored at all levels of health care, whether public or private. The study was of all the women who gave birth in the General Hospital over a period of three months. An interview was administered to 500 pregnant women. It was found that the number of pregnancies attended to at the Primary Care level is small (9% in Health Centre consultations and 6% by the General Practitioner). The entry of pregnant women into the Health System is late: 48% from the fourth mont. In a high percentage of cases, no explorations of the neck of the womb are made; nor are certain analytic tests (e.g. renal and liver function tests and urinary cultures) and various complementary checks made. 1) Health Education programmes must be initiated at the Primary Care level, in order to draw in at an early stage the pregnant woman. 2) There is a need to use guidelines for pregnancy and develop programmes of ongoing training for Primary Care professionals, in order to improve the quality of health care during pregnancy.