Abstract:
The study investigated the attitude to and practices of Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI) among women of childbearing age (WCBA) attending health facilities in Igbo-Eze South LGA of Enugu State. Eight specific objectives were formulated with eight corresponding research questions and six null hypotheses were postulated to guide the study. Literatures relevant to the study were reviewed. Population for the study was 7210 registered WCBA who attended health facilities in Igbo-Eze South LGA of Enugu State. The study adopted a cross sectional survey research design, Multistage sampling procedure was used to select the sample which was 144. A three section (27 item) researchers designed questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Face validity of the questionnaire was established by five experts and split half method of spearman’s Rank difference correlation method was employed to test the reliability of the study. The instrument was administered to respondents by the researcher by hand. Mean scores, frequencies and percentages were used to answer the research questions while t-test and ANOVA were used to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Results of the study among others show that there was significant difference in attitude and practices of WCBA towards prenatal as it regards age, level of education and level of monthly income. The study recommended that Health Education programmes should be established and intensified at the grass-root level to increase and promote the utilization of SMI services among childbearing mothers
