Perception of obstetric danger signs among women living on the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean in rural Lagos, Nigeria

Implementation of safe motherhood programs in sub-Saharan African nations requires recognition of signs of potential emergency obstetric cases to facilitate immediate care seeking and urgent medical intervention. This questionnaire-based survey aimed to describe the perception of obstetric danger signs among women of reproductive age, living on the Atlantic coastline of rural Lagos. This cross-sectional, descriptive study took place in two non-congruent communities of Lagos State, Nigeria, between October 2012 and March 2013. Epi Info 7 was used to calculate sample size for the projected population in each community. Statistical analysis was carried out using STATA 13 software. A total of 829 females (20% single, 80% married) participated in the study. Among these, about 76 and 79% disagreed that bleeding and high blood pressure were obstetric danger signs, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed a positive and significant association between awareness of bleeding as obstetric danger sign as the dependent variable and both knowledge of antenatal care (t=6.53, p=0.000) and knowing a woman who died in pregnancy (t=3.34, p=0.001) as independent variables. Rural women on Atlantic Ocean coastline of Lagos had low perception of obstetric danger signs indicating promotion of acceptable maternal health in this environment. Key words: Perception, danger signs, obstetrics, reproductive age, Atlantic ocean coastline, rural.