Abstract:

Background: Preconception care (PCC) refers to the provision of biomedical, behavioral and social health interventions to women and couples before conception and aims at improving their health status, and reducing behaviors and individual and environmental factors that contribute to poor maternal and child health outcomes. Despite that the policy planners and stakeholders are giving priority agenda for maternal and child health care, maternal and neonatal mortality reduction is not at the desired level and preconception health care hasn’t become part of routine practice across the globe especially in low income countries.

Objective: The main objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of preconception care among women of reproductive age at Magu district hospital.

Methodology: Descriptive cross-sectional study design was used to collect data using Kirkwood formula. To obtain 341 participants using 27.5% prevalence. A mult-stage simple random sampling was used. SPSS version 20 was used for analysis.

Results: Study finding revealed that the proportion of women among reproductive age who had adequate knowledge on preconception health care was 24.3%, those who heard about preconception care was 32% and those who did not hear accounted for 68% and the level of practice among the participants was 22%

Conclusion: The study found the low level of knowledge and low level of practice when it comes to the preconception care so the study recommends the use of health education, empowering all health facility to provide preconception care services to improve the knowledge and practice on preconception care and ultimately maternal and child health before, during and after being pregnancy