Different approaches to ANC are used in different countries, including the traditional approach, targeted ANC, focused ANC (FANC), and basic ANC approach (BANC). While some countries devise and develop their approaches to suit their particular circumstances, others could easily take an approach that exists elsewhere.
This approach uses risk assessment to identify women who are likely to experience complications during pregnancy and to assume that more clinic visits lead to better pregnancy outcomes and for more, you can go to antenatal care frequently asked questions to clarify your doubts. This approach could channel scarce resources in developing countries to women with high-risk pregnancies, suggesting that women with low-risk pregnancies may not be treated optimally.
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This approach is being questioned by the WHO. Programs for mothers and newborns claim that frequent visits to the ANC are logically and financially impossible for women to manage and add to the burden on the health system. Frequent visits to the ANC do not necessarily improve pregnancy outcomes.
WHO recognizes that traditional ANC programs for developed countries are poorly executed and largely ineffective in developing countries.
WHO has developed and tested a FANC package that includes only consultations, studies, and tests that have immediate goals and have proven health benefits as an ideal approach for developing countries. In the FANC approach, the WHO recommends reducing the number of ANC visits to four, and this has not been found to pose risks to the health of mothers or babies.