PURPOSE: to know the mothers perception about the prenatal care. METHOD: there were interviewed within 48 hours after the delivery, 150 postpartum women, from various health services that accessed the Hospital Universitário de Santa Maria / RS, from December 2010 to February 2011. RESULTS: from the 150 postpartum women, 91,33% attended prenatal consultation in a health system from the town and 8,67% did not attend any consultation. 56,67% of postpartum women considered that prenatal care is important both for the mother and for the baby; regarding prenatal care held in the city, 84.67% of postpartum women judges that there is no need for change. CONCLUSION:despite of the users consider the assistance appropriate, the authors estimate that there are deficiencies in prenatal care in the different services that could be assisted by conducting a multi-professional and interdisciplinary work. In this sense, intensify the educational process among the pregnant women may improve the care quality, eliminate the lack of prenatal and decrease maternal and infant morbimortality rates in the municipality.
Prenatal Care; Maternal and Child Health; Health Education; Interdisciplinary Research
