Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Antenatal care (ANC) provides an opportunity for systematic assessment and follow-up of pregnant women to ensure positive outcomes for mother and foetus. Pregnant women should be offered evidence-based information with support to enable them to make informed decisions. OBJECTIVE: To identify the gap between the current practices and the recommended guidelines for antenatal education services in Oman. METHODS: A qualitative inquiry was implemented through semistructured in-depth interviews guided by open-ended questions and probes. A purposive non-probability sampling technique was used to select 13 pregnant women who had completed 30 weeks of gestation. The women were selected from 9 antenatal healthcare facilities among them: 7 primary health centers, one polyclinic and one, tertiary hospital. RESULTS: Antenatal education focused on four thematic areas of safe pregnancy; safe labor and birth; postpartum care; and new-born care. Regarding antenatal education for safe pregnancy, the findings indicate that most healthcare workers provided pregnant women adequate information to promote healthy dietary habits; cope with pregnancy symptoms; recognize and manage medical conditions, and to adhere to dietary supplements and medication. In addition, the findings revealed that the healthcare team did not provide the required antenatal education to meet the pregnant women's needs to ensure they had safe labor and birth, postpartum care, and new-born care. CONCLUSION: This study is the first of its kind in Oman to provide baseline data regarding the current antenatal education services from the perspective of pregnant women. These findings will help in developing strategies to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes in the country.