Abstract:

Antenatal care service is an important goal concerning in the health status of the pregnant women during their reproductive period and its health beneficial
accounting for nearly one quarter of all pregnant worldwide. Early booking has an advantage for proper pregnancy information sharing and pregnancy monitoring.
Unfortunately, adverse pregnancy outcome can occur even in women without identifiable risk factors. The objective of this study was to describe knowledge,
attitudes and practices towards women seeking antenatal care from their previous pregnancy in Dodoma Municipal Tanzania. This was a cross sectional community
based descriptive survey study. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was applied. . Among the 500 women included, 299(59.8%) was from the age group
of 19 to 25 years. A total of 477(95.4%) were at the level of primary education. About 341(68.2%) of them were housewives while 155(31%) of them worked
as Petty business and only 4(0.8%) worked at the public work. 101(20.2%) of women having more than three children and categorized as multipara. A total of
104 women (20.8%) had history of home delivery and only 4 women (0.8%) had history of assisted by traditional birth attendance, however highest interviewed
women 257(51.4%) had the hospital delivery and 117(23.4) had delivery at the health centre. Regarding of the reproduction history, 78(15.6%) of them
had experienced episode of eclampsia, 235(47%) had episode of involved with perineal tear. Only 1(0.2%) of them had history of one stillbirth before while
186(37.2%) of the interviewed women had history of postpartum haemorrhage. The highest first antenatal clinic attendance of pregnancy were 28weeks of
gestation age 169(33.8%) with the few of the women had attended at 36weeks of gestation age 20(4%).Only 62(12.4%) of the women admitted that they did
come for antenatal visit during the first three months and others had the late visit. However, only 92(18.4%) admitted that they had delivery by caesarian
section on their previous pregnancy while 408(81.6%) of them had spontaneous vaginal delivery. Only 60(12.0%) of women had one visit of antenatal clinic and
270(54.0%) were the highest which had two visit, three were 93(18.6) and four visit were 77(12.4%). In Conclusion, ANC services, awareness and the use
of supplements therapy are promising in the pregnancy women. To achieve maximum ANC services and practices among pregnancy women with high and
low risk groups, there is a need to integrate public and private sector concerning ANC services planned and conducted in order to improve their maternal health
and eventually improve the health status of newborn child.