Around 500,000 mothers die every year because of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.  Indonesia has the highest maternal mortality rate in Southeast Asia, since the rate was 228 per 100,000 live births in 2007 and is still rising. Therefore, the Indonesian government has introduced many programs to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates such as the 10-step basic standards of Antenatal Care (ANC) as ANC practice guidelines for midwives.

A cross-sectional study was conducted to identify factors related to the intention of midwives regarding the use of the basic ANC practice guidelines in community health centers and public hospitals in Palembang, Indonesia. According to the findings, most of the midwives have high intentions to use the basic ANC practice guidelines. In addition, years of work and attitudes have a statistically significant association with the midwives’ intention regarding use of the basic ANC practice guidelines. Midwives having positive attitudes are three times more likely to have high intentions than those having negative attitudes.

The authors conclude that the basic ANC standards help midwives to detect problems during pregnancy as early as possible, as well as offering appropriate treatments. Therefore, policy makers should increase the frequency and quality of training about ANC for midwives, especially new and young staff members to promote positive attitudes towards its use, which will enable midwives to detect early complication in pregnancy. Besides, the authors recommend undertaking the ANC practice guidelines in the private sector and other provinces in Indonesia for further research, so that the results can be more widely generalized.