Female Farmworkers’ Access to and Experiences with Prenatal Care in South Florida

Abstract Background: Florida has a large population of farmworkers, who face barriers to healthcare access. This can be problematic for farmworkers with increased need, like pregnant women. Lack of adequate and timely prenatal care is associated with negative maternal/newborn outcomes. Understanding farmworkers’ access to and experience with prenatal care will advance promotion of prenatal care for this at-risk population. Purpose: Explore farmworkers’ access to and experience with prenatal care in South Florida. Methods: We recruited 100 farmworker women, obtained informed consent, and verbally administered a 53-item survey. The survey explored experience with prenatal care in the past two years. We used past literature to design the survey. We analyzed timely and adequate prenatal care, and maternal/newborn outcomes using SPSS version 20. The University’s IRB approved the research protocol. Findings: The majority (97%), of participants started prenatal care during the first trimester, and (90%) received 5-10/15 prenatal care visits. Emergency Medicaid provided support for prenatal care; only 3% paid out-of-pocket. Only 7% had problems during delivery, and none of the babies died or were of low birthweight. Conclusion: The majority of participants received adequate and timely prenatal care, and experienced positive maternal/newborn outcomes. Our results differed from previous studies that found farmworkers had a lack of adequate prenatal care, and high percentages of negative outcomes. Our outcomes may in part be attributed to the availability of Medicaid that allowed participants to access prenatal care. These results point to the importance of maintaining and enhancing these programs to help ensure all pregnant women have access to prenatal care