ABSTRACT

Antenatal care is named one of the pillars of safe motherhood, early and frequent attendance of antenatal care during pregnancy is important to identify and control risks factors in pregnancy. However many women in sub-Saharan Africa start antenatal care late and do not complete the recommended visits by WHO. Therefore they don’t fully benefit from its preventive and curative services. The aim of this study was to asses factors that affect completion of antenatal visits at Kampala International University Teaching Hospital The study was descriptive using both quantitative and qualitative approaches and 33 respondents were involved only pregnant mothers attending ANC at KIUTH where selected using simple random sampling The results indicated that socioeconomic status limited mothers in that though 9 (27.1 %) used no cost to go to the health facility. 45.5% lived in rural areas far from hospital, 15(45.5%) were employed mothers and only 10 (66.7%) were employed full time, 22 (66.6%) had their financial support from their husband and only 8 (24.2%) catered for their own health. 30(91.9%) mothers knew the advantages of completion of ANC but 13 (39.6%) did not know when to come for their first antenatal visit. All cultures allowed use of ANC 17 (51.5%) were influenced by mother in law concerning about pregnancy. Factors including poor economic status and lack of knowledge about when to initiate the first antenatal visit are the biggest challenges. Antenatal care enrolment with community based interventions are needed, which involve men and need to be combined with interventions that target improving the quality, content and outreach of antenatal care services to enhance early antenatal care enrolment among pregnant women.