Abstract

Background: During Covid 19 pandemic, the utilization of maternal healthcare services by pregnant women was disrupted mainly due to Covid-19-related factors like curfew and fear of acquiring the infection while visiting the healthcare centers, because of this only a few numbers of pregnant women maintained their visiting schedule so this study aimed to study the sociodemographic and other characteristics of pregnant women who misused health care services during Covid-19 pandemic. Method: This is a cross-sectional record-based study. A form of questionnaire was applied to records, and a sample of pregnant women who defaulted from receiving antenatal & postnatal services were selected randomly during the period from 1st of March 2020 to 31st of June 2020 in Basrah. Results: 44.3% of the women were between 20 and 29 years old. Thirty-four of the studied women and thirty of their husbands had only primary education, most of those women worked as housewives (91%) and their husbands were self-employed (69%). About 28% of women were of gravida five and above and only 12% were primigravida, while (22%) had only one child. Most of those women (87%) had no chronic or gestational disease and no history of abortion or stillbirth (81%). The highest percentage of the defaulters (59%) had only one visit during their pregnancy with the booking age of first visit at 13-20 weeks (43%) and only 22% had a postnatal visit, while 32% had completed their tetanus toxoid doses. Conclusion: There is a significant association between the number of visits during pregnancy with the education and occupation of mothers. Also, Previous history of abortion, parity, and booking age of visit had significant associations with the number of visits during pregnancy.