Empowering Pregnant Women: Improving Awareness of Pregnancy Danger Signs in Desa Tenaru

Abstract

The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) remains a critical healthcare challenge in Indonesia, heavily driven by delays in recognizing pregnancy danger signs. In Desa Tenaru, Gresik, local midwives detected a high-risk pregnancy rate of 26.96%, surpassing the national benchmark and signaling an urgent need for enhanced maternal awareness to prevent complications. This community service program aimed to improve pregnant women's knowledge of pregnancy danger sign through a structured health education intervention. A single face-to-face session was conducted utilizing interactive lectures, discussion sessions, the Maternal and Child Health (KIA) handbook, and informative leaflets. To evaluate the program’s effectiveness, an objective multiple-choice questionnaire was administered to 15 pregnant women before and after the intervention. The results showed a significant shift in participants' understanding; pre-test data revealed that 53.3% of participants had poor knowledge, whereas post-test data demonstrated that 66.0% achieved the "Good" knowledge category. This substantial increase confirms that combining interactive lectures with real-life case discussions effectively bridges information gaps. Ultimately, empowering pregnant women with high pregnancy danger sign awareness synchronizes clinical surveillance with rapid patient responsiveness, thereby eliminating the first delay in medical referrals and supporting national initiatives to reduce MMR.