ABSTRACT
The Antenatal Department of hospitals is for medical advice and treatments of expectance mothers before delivery. Antenatal care is all about material and fetal care, to see that the baby is developing without malformation and giving mothers’ advice on what to eat, type of exercise needed, scanning and pathology rest. This Research is to design and implement a system (computerized) that offers information on Antenatal care as of when due (Just-in-time), advise on what to take and other medical guidance to pregnant mothers to effectively reduce childbirth mortality and other related issues. The main aim of research is to replace the existing manual Antenatal information system but with high reliability, accuracy, speed and less cost.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
An information system is needed to provide basic data for any organization, which are required for decision making, coordinating and controlling of records, therefore it is of great importance that the discovery of an adequate means of making the information available to everyone concerned, this is because for decision to be made efficiently and timely the information must be consistent, up-to-date, accurate and reliable (just-in-time) to affect the operation for which it is being provided. Pregnancy can be a stressful event for many women. Women experience stress during pregnancy due to concerns about maternal-fetal safety, competence in the maternal role, physical changes, anxiety of labor and birth, social relationships, and financial issues. Maternal age, parity, pregnancy history, and maternal health status all could affect maternal stress perception. The first and second trimesters have been reported as the most stressful periods for pregnant women, and the stress in early pregnancy could last through late pregnancy month. A computerized Antenatal education system has been shown to be an effective strategy for improving maternal stress and self-efficacy during pregnancy, with the implementation of the Antenatal system, it will provide opportunities for pregnant women to develop competence and obtain knowledge, skills, and social support from health care providers. Researchers have suggested that antenatal education should meet pregnant women’s needs by providing strategies to cope with common pregnancy-related stressors. Pregnant women are interested in participating in a web based or internet-based antenatal education or antenatal care. Previous research has reported that over 90% of pregnant women are interested in using the internet or smartphones to search for pregnancy-related information that affects their decision making. The current research aim is to design and implement an effective computerized web-based antenatal education system on maternal stress and other related health issues during pregnancy.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The major function of the Antenatal unit is to cater for expectance mothers and provide necessary advice for the well-being of the mother and yet to be born child until delivery date, which is why the pregnant mother visits the unit, which is a little difficult for heavy mothers to always visit the hospital regularly to seek medical advisers and checkup. This research work is to design and implement an antenatal information system that will help in timely and useful information processing that can be accessible over the internet always.
1.3 AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main aim of the research is to design a computerized Antenatal information system for hospitals across Nigeria, with the following objectives:
- 1. Provide information availability to Antenatal patients and to doctors about expectance mothers’ antenatal care.
- 2. To provide and enhance access to information about Antenatal patients i.e. quick information retrieval and secured storage.
- 3. Computerized Antenatal mother registration in the Hospital.
- 4. Provide an up-to-date, real-time, and reliable and desire information for the management, patients seeking advice.
- 5. Provide the best way for information processing retrieval and secured storage for future purpose.
1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
There are setbacks in information dissemination and flow in the manual way pregnant women are attended to in Antenatal unit thus the researcher felt the need to embark on this study in other to identify and provide solutions to those setback as the objectives of the work include. The work will create on awareness of the ideal contents of Antenatal care which include: Preconception counseling, Assessment of risk factors, Assessment of fetal well-being etc.
- The research will enable information to be provided in educating especially first time pregnant mothers about normal discomforts of pregnancy, Emotional aspects (including post-anta depression so that these mothers are being reassured and fears driver away.
- The research will be able to incorporate a computerized system that can keep track of information about Antenatal patients and their History (medical examinations)
- The research will be able to clear the doubts of the relevance of Antenatal care.
- Finally, the research will center on educating mothers, providing information to health care agents and the antenatal unit for proper information flow.
SCREEN SHOTS OF THE APPLICATION
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This research covers the provision of information related to the Antenatal unit of the department of a hospital.
