الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Pregnancy is a time of joy and great anticipation for most expectant families. It is also a time of significant psychosocial and developmental transition and adaptation. However, a tremendous hope for the future can suddenly be halted by the diagnosis of a complicated pregnancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about 300 million women in the developing countries suffer from short and long-term illnesses due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, where about 529,000 women die each year and 1500 women die every day from these complications. Although most of these complications are avoidable, unavailable, inaccessible, unaffordable, or poor quality care is fundamentally responsible for their occurrence.
Obstetric danger signs of pregnancy complications include persistent vomiting; severe vaginal bleeding; severe recurrent frontal headache; severe persistent abdominal pain; swelling of face, fingers and feet as well as blurring of vision; fits; high grade fever and marked change in fetal movement. However, every expectant mother should be aware of these danger signs as raising this awareness will ultimately improve early detection of problems and reduces the delay in deciding to seek obstetric care.
The study aimed to assess pregnant women’s knowledge about warning signs during pregnancy.
An exploratory descriptive research design was utilized, where a convince sample of 300 women were selected from the antenatal clinic of EL-Shatby Maternity University Hospital in Alexandria.
Two tools were developed and used by the researcher to collect the necessary data. Tool one; socio-demographic, reproductive and clinical data Structured interview schedule, which included three parts; socio-demographic data as well as reproductive and medical histories. Tool two, knowledge about warning signs of pregnancy structured interview schedule, which included 50 questions divided into 8 items; general knowledge (3 questions) as well as knowledge about hyperemesis gravidarum (7 questions), bleeding (9 questions), fever (4 questions), change of fetal movement (6 questions), severe headache (8 questions), edema (8 questions) and premature rupture of membranes (5 questions).
A pilot study was carried out on 30 pregnant women, who were excluded from the study sample, to test the relevance and clarity of the tools and to estimate the time needed to complete them. Collection of data covered a period of 9 months; from the beginning of March 2013 till the end of November 2013. Data were collected through an interview schedule, which was conducted individually and in total privacy during antenatal visit. Finally, the collected data was categorized, coded, computerized, tabulated and analyzed.
The main findings of the study were:
Socio-demographic data:
It was noticed that the mean age of pregnant women was 29.6 + 6.101.
It was illustrates that almost three-fifths (57.33%) of pregnant women were illiterate or just read and write.