Timely Prenatal Care Reminders
Oftentimes it is hard to provide healthcare services to pregnant women in vulnerable populations, particularly in rural and low-income settings. In the face of these challenges, creativity is of the essence. The project, in Guatemala, is innovative because it takes full advantage of the skills of community health workers, who receive training to go door to door to deliver personalized information that has the potential to modify pregnant women’s behavior and increase preventive visits and prenatal care. It also provides new evidence on how empowering workers and mothers from vulnerable contexts by providing the former with detailed lists and the latter with timely information can make a big difference.
Problematic
Guatemala faces a painful and disturbing situation: its levels of maternal and child mortality as well as those of chronic malnutrition are above the Latin America and the Caribbean average. Although the country has expanded free healthcare coverage, the service is not well accepted in rural areas, which reduces the chances of pregnant women to receive prenatal care.
Solution
The solution to this problem is in the hands of healthcare workers, who deliver pregnant women reminders of scheduled prenatal care visits. The health staff was trained and provided with updated lists of pregnant women so they can visit their homes and hand over personalized and timely information on upcoming prenatal care appointments. This creative and arduous task optimizes the work performed by extant healthcare personnel, who respond to the challenges presented by rural settings with responsibility and dedication.
Evaluation and Impact
A total 130 clinics were randomly allocated to either a treatment or a control group. In each group, the health staff provided pregnant women with information on prenatal care visits. But the treatment group personnel were given updated information, while the control group staff had to identify the women using their own resources. The good news is that results show that reminders raise prenatal care between 3.4-7.8 percentage points, particularly among pregnant women at higher risk (first pregnancy, older women who have miscarried in the past, etc.). Both training and precise information provided to workers proved to be crucial for the program’s success.