Counseling received in prenatal care by Brazilian women.
Ana Clara Alves Tomé de Souza, Marina Garcia Avelar Rocha, Kênia Lara Silva and 4 others
PMID 40277846WHAT IT FOUND
Most Brazilian women reported receiving many prenatal counseling topics, but younger, less educated, Black, Brown, Indigenous, North/Northeast and public-care women were less likely to receive key pregnancy and childbirth counseling.
Key findings
01Counseling on which maternity service to attend rose from 74.9% in 2013 to 83.0% in 2019, but younger, North/Northeast, low-education, Indigenous, Black and Brown women using public care were less likely to receive it.
02Counseling on signs of labor (70.8%) and signs of pregnancy risk (75.2%) was less common, and less common among Black, Brown, Yellow and Indigenous women, women with 0-8 years of education, Northeast residents and public-care users.
03Breastfeeding counseling was reported by 82.4% of women, but less than 80% among women with low education, Black or Brown women and those using public care.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Women were asked about counseling received after births up to two years before the survey, so recall may be inaccurate. Only counseling about which maternity service to attend could be compared across 2013 and 2019 because most other counseling questions were not repeated in 2019. The sample did not represent Asian and Indigenous populations well, so results for those groups need caution. The study reports associations with background characteristics and prenatal care setting, not why counseling was missed or whether counseling changed maternal or newborn outcomes. Public prenatal care was associated with lower counseling, but the authors suggest this may reflect social vulnerability rather than care quality alone.
Declared interests
The study was financed in part by CNPQ, a Brazilian scientific development agency. No competing interest statement is included in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the increase in reference-maternity counseling as proof that prenatal care quality improved overall. The study only reports what women recalled receiving, most counseling topics were not comparable between 2013 and 2019, and public-care associations may reflect social vulnerability rather than care quality alone.