Exploring survivor perceptions of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in Nigeria through the health belief model.

BACKGROUND: In Nigeria, hypertensive disorders have become the leading cause of facility-based maternal mortality. Many factors influence pregnant women's health-seeking behaviors and perceptions around the importance of antenatal care. This qualitative study describes the care-seeking pathways of Nigerian women who suffer from pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. It identifies the influences - barriers and enablers - that affect their decision making, and proposes solutions articulated by women themselves to overcome the obstacles they face. Informing this study is the health belief model, a cognitive value-expectancy theory that provides a framework for exploring perceptions and understanding women's narratives around pre-eclampsia and eclampsia-related care seeking. METHODS: This study adopted a qualitative design that enables fully capturing the narratives of women who experienced pre-eclampsia and eclampsia during their pregnancy. In-depth interviews were conducted with 42 women aged 17-48 years over five months in 2015 from Bauchi, Cross River, Ebonyi, Katsina, Kogi, Ondo and Sokoto states to ensure representation from each geo-political zone in Nigeria. These qualitative data were analyzed through coding and memo-writing, using NVivo 11 software. RESULTS: We found that many of the beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and behaviors of women are consistent across the country, with some variation between the north and south. In Nigeria, women's perceived susceptibility and threat of health complications during pregnancy and childbirth, including pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, influence care-seeking behaviors. Moderating influences include acquisition of knowledge of causes and signs of pre-eclampsia, the quality of patient-provider antenatal care interactions, and supportive discussions and care seeking-enabling decisions with families and communities. These cues to action mitigate perceived mobility, financial, mistrust, and contextual barriers to seeking timely care and promote the benefits of maternal and newborn survival and greater confidence in and access to the health system. CONCLUSIONS: The health belief model reveals intersectional effects of childbearing norms, socio-cultural beliefs and trust in the health system and elucidates opportunities to intervene and improve access to quality and respectful care throughout a woman's pregnancy and childbirth. Across Nigerian settings, it is critical to enhance context-adapted community awareness programs and interventions to promote birth preparedness and social support.

The role of maternal ideations on breastfeeding practices in northwestern Nigeria: a cross-section study.

BACKGROUND: Early initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour of birth and exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) for the first six months of life are beneficial for child survival and long-term health. Yet breastfeeding rates remain sub-optimal in Northwestern Nigeria, and such practices are often influenced by complex psychosocial factors at cognitive, social and emotional levels. To understand these influences, we developed a set of breastfeeding-related ideational factors and quantitatively examined their relationship with early initiation of breastfeeding and EBF practices. METHODS: A cross-sectional population-based survey was conducted in Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara states from September-October 2019. A random sample of 3039 women with a child under-2 years was obtained. Respondents were asked about the two main outcomes, early initiation of breastfeeding and EBF, as well as breastfeeding-related ideations according to the Ideation Model of Strategic Communication and Behavior Change. Average marginal effects were estimated from mixed-effects logistic regression models adjusted for ideational and socio-demographic variables. RESULTS: Among 3039 women with a child under 2 years of age, 42.1% (95% CI 35.1%, 49.4%) practiced early initiation of breastfeeding, while 37.5% (95% CI 29.8%, 46.0%) out of 721 infants aged 0-5 months were exclusively breastfed. Women who knew early initiation of breastfeeding was protective of newborn health had 7.9 percentage points (pp) [95% CI 3.9, 11.9] higher likelihood of early initiation of breastfeeding practice than those who did not know. Women who believed colostrum was harmful had 8.4 pp lower likelihood of early initiation of breastfeeding (95% CI -12.4, -4.3) and EBF (95% CI -15.7%, -1.0%) than those without that belief. We found higher likelihood of early initiation of breastfeeding (5.1 pp, 95% CI 0.8%, 9.4%) and EBF (13.3 pp, 95% CI 5.0%, 22.0%) among women who knew at least one benefit of breastfeeding compared to those who did not know. Knowing the timing for introducing complementary foods andself-efficacy to practice EBF were also significantly associated with EBF practices. CONCLUSION: Ideational metrics provide significant insights for SBC programs aiming to change and improve health behaviors, including breastfeeding practices, Various cognitive, emotional and social domains played a significant role in women's breastfeeding decisions. Maternal knowledge about the benefits of breastfeeding to the mother (cognitive), knowledge of the appropriate time to introduce complementary foods (cognitive), beliefs on colostrum (cognitive), self-efficacy to breastfeed (emotional) and perceived social norms (social) are among the most important ideations for SBC programs to target to increase early initiation of breastfeeding and EBF rates in northwestern Nigeria.