Perceived Benefits of Prenatal Exercise Among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Clinic at Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper investigated the perceived benefits of prenatal exercise among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. One research question and two hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey design was used, the population of the study was 7200 pregnant women while the sample for the study was 720 pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Federal Hospital Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. A self-developed structured questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer research question while ANOVA statistics were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significant. The study found that pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, Ebonyi State had positive perception on the benefit of prenatal exercise and that there are significant differences on the perception of benefit of prenatal exercise among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki, Ebonyi State based on age and level of education. It was recommended that Government, health educators and hospital management should organize continuing education programmes, seminars and workshop to promote prenatal exercise among pregnant women to actualize the perceived benefits of prenatal exercise in pregnancy.

Keywords: Exercise, prenatal exercise, pregnant woman, perceived benefits