| Summary: | Poor maternal health is one of the major risk factors related to adverse birth
outcomes. Women entering pregnancy with poor health status are at higher risk of these
outcomes. Prenatal care has been established as the standard prevention paradigm to reduce
poor pregnancy outcomes. However, public health professionals are realizing that prenatal
care alone is not sufficient to improve perinatal health and birth outcomes, and instead have
emphasized the importance of preconception care (PCC). Evidence-based studies reveal that
those who received PCC services have better pregnancy outcomes than those who did not.
Most published research on preconception are clinical studies, little is known about women’s
perception of preconception health and decision-making factor(s) to engage in preconception
health practices. Existing research on preconception health behaviors have used
retrospective designs, making them difficult to use in assessing the extent of women’s
understanding of preconception health behaviors and its relationship to the practice of these
behaviors. Thus, an exploratory qualitative study was needed to examine factors associated
with preconception health behaviors. The objective of this study was to answer two research questions: (a) What are
childbearing age women’s knowledge, beliefs, and perceptions of preconception health/care
and how do these factors influence their preconception health behavior? (b) What are the
perceived factors (facilitators and hindrances) associated with these women’s intention and
decision-making regarding preconception health behaviors? Thirteen women were
interviewed about their knowledge and perceptions about PCC and intention toward
preconception health behavior practice. The results indicated that women believed PCC is
important—using the analogy of preparing their house [body] for conception. Participants
associated PCC with physical and nutritional behavior; few acknowledged the importance of
mental health. While women believed PCC was important, the majority did not intend to
engage in PCC until they became pregnant. The main motivator to engage in PCC was
pregnancy. Self-described “laziness” was the most common reported perceived barrier to
PCC. Implications of this study are that additional studies with improved designs are needed
to clarify relationships among intentions and actual behaviors, and that health educators
should focus on educating women about the importance of self-care before conception.
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