Client education experiences and expectations of women at the first level of maternal and child care in Kaduna state, Nigeria

Purposeto explore the client education experiences of women at first level maternal and child health-care facilities in Kaduna State Nigeria. The lack of access to appropriate information to assist women in making decisions about their health and utilize available services is recognized as a major contributory factor to the unabated high maternal and child mortality rates in Nigeria.Designa qualitative descriptive study was conducted. Nine focus group discussions were held with 65 women across the three senatorial zones of Kaduna State, Nigeria. Participants were recruited using maximum variation sampling technique. Audio recordings of the discussions were transcribed and the content analysed. The themes were determined by a priory approach and findings compared across groups through manually developed data matrices.Findingsmidwives were the major source of useful health information to the women who wished the midwives could cover more issues. The information provided by the midwives was skewed towards children and postnatal care, and some midwives ignored, or considered some of the women's questions interrupting. The harshness of midwives in emphasizing the need for prompt care, to women who came late to register or deliver, kept some women away. Women who never delivered in the facilities were not aware that the ‘nurses’ at the clinics were midwives, and desired to know more about midwifery in the facilities being tired of traditional birth attendants.Conclusionthe desire of women for more information and to know the ‘midwife’ suggests a gap between what the women expected and what they were provided.Implication for practiceit is important to expand the scope of client education to include critical pregnancy and labour related issues and friendly midwifery practices in the facility.