The cultural beliefs and practices amongst urban antenatal Botswana women
Date
2014-05-19
Authors
Lionjanga, Reginah
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Abstract
The purpose of this non-experimental descriptive study was to identify the cultural
beliefs and practices surrounding pregnancy. The study aims at collecting data which
will function as baseline information on cultural beliefs and practices surrounding
pregnancy. The study was conducted in the city of Francistown, the second largest to
the capital of Botswana situated in the north-east. A structured interview guide with
both open and close-ended questions was used to collect data from 230 pregnant
women who were 18 years of age and above and who were willing to participate. The
data was processed on computer and a statistical software package known as
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used. The study revealed that
pregnant women used a combination of care givers which either included a modem
midwife and an elderly woman at church or a modem midwife and a traditional
midwife. This is done in order to follow the traditional and cultural beliefs
surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. The majority (92.2%) of the antenatal women
in this study had primary and secondary education but still follow their cultural
beliefs and practices, thus education does not appear to influence cultural beliefs and
practices. The most common reasons cited for adhering to the beliefs and practices
were that defiance was a taboo punishable by the ancestors. This study has
highlighted the cultural beliefs and practices related to pregnancy. Further in-depth
investigation into the impact of these cultural beliefs and practices is needed as it is
imperative to determine their impact on pregnancy and its outcome. The limitation of
the study was that data was only collected in one city and therefore the results cannot
be generalised to the entire population.