Concealed pregnancy as an act of care?: A qualitative analysis of motivations for concealing and non-disclosure of early pregnancy in The Gambia

Sabine Parrish; Senthil K. Vasan; Fredrik Karpe; Polly Hardy-Johnson; Ousman Jarjou; Mustapha Bittaye; Andrew M. Prentice; Stanley Ulijaszek; Modou Jobe

doi:10.1186/s12884-023-05710-6

Concealed pregnancy as an act of care? A qualitative analysis of motivations for concealing and non-disclosure of early pregnancy in The Gambia

Sabine Parrish^* (Corresponding Author), Senthil K. Vasan, Fredrik Karpe, Polly Hardy-Johnson, Ousman Jarjou, Mustapha Bittaye, Andrew M. Prentice, Stanley Ulijaszek, Modou Jobe

^*Corresponding author for this work

Anthropology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

A barrier to achieving first trimester antenatal care (ANC) attendance in many countries has been the widespread cultural practice of not discussing pregnancies in the early stages. Motivations for concealing pregnancy bear further study, as the interventions necessary to encourage early ANC attendance may be more complicated than targeting infrastructural barriers to ANC attendance such as transportation, time, and cost.

Original language	English
Article number	374
Number of pages	8
Journal	BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
Volume	23
Early online date	24 May 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-023-05710-6
Publication status	Published - 24 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the support and active input from the Scientific Coordinating Committee (SCC) and from the Research Governance and Support Services, MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM. We would like to thank the management and staff of the Ministry of Health of The Gambia and of Kanifing General Hospital for their support in conducting the study at the hospital premises. The authors thank the staff of the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM and, in particular: Fatou Y. Manneh for data collection activities, Penda John and Fatou Jaiteh for valuable input in designing the protocol and focus group discussion guide. Finally, we are grateful to the many study participants who have been so willing to contribute to this study.

Funding
Funding for the PRIMORDIAL study is from Medical Research Council, UK (MR/R020345/1) the Global Challenges Research fund, University of Oxford, UK (0006138), and Newton Fund (BT/IN/DBT-MRC/DIFD/JM/12/2018–19).

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to reasons of sensitivity but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Keywords

Child health
Diabetes
Maternal health
Witchcraft

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

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Cite this

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abstract = "A barrier to achieving first trimester antenatal care (ANC) attendance in many countries has been the widespread cultural practice of not discussing pregnancies in the early stages. Motivations for concealing pregnancy bear further study, as the interventions necessary to encourage early ANC attendance may be more complicated than targeting infrastructural barriers to ANC attendance such as transportation, time, and cost.",

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