Maternal care services involves provision of health care to women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period at reproductive health care settings. The quality of maternal care services that women receive determine their reproductive health status in pregnancy, delivery and postpartum and impact on their overall wellbeing and that of the feotus. Maternal complications in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum that usually result to death of women and their feotus due to poor maternal care services are still persistent in North-Eastern Nigeria, Nigeria. Therefore, the study examined the impacts of maternal care services on reproductive health of pregnant women attending primary health care centres in North-Eastern Nigeria. An ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted of 2,487 registered pregnant women attending primary health care centres in North-Eastern Nigeria. A sample of 482 was selected through multistage sampling procedures. A researcher-developed questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection, the instrument was validated by three experts was used as instrument for the study. The reliability of the instrument was established with the use of split-half method and analyzed using Cronbach alpha statistics; a coefficient of 0.87 was obtained which shows the instrument is reliable. Inferential Statistics of Chi-square was used to analyze the data at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study show that maternal care services of medical check-up, physical test, health talk and immunization have significant impacts on reproductive health of pregnant women attending primary health care centres in North-Eastern Nigeria. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that regular seminars and training should be organized by reproductive health care professionals for pregnant women in order to enlighten them on the benefits of maternal care services in order to improve their reproductive health status. Also, government should provide high quality immunization equipment and medications available and accessible in maternal care services centres as one strategy of prevention maternal complication during postpartum period and to improve the reproductive health and wellbeing of the mother and newborn baby.
Keywords: North Eastern Nigeria, Pregnant Women, Reproductive Health, maternal care services, primary health care centres
