Research Article A Qualitative Study on the Pathways to Evidence-Based Antenatal Care in Periurban Ghana Jones Asafo Akowuah , 1 Peter Agyei-Baffour, 2 and Benedict Osei Asibey 3 1 Department of Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness and Extension, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana 2 Department of Community Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana 3 Department of Geography and Rural Development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana Correspondence should be addressed to Jones Asafo Akowuah; asafojones60@gmail.com Received 10 August 2017; Revised 5 June 2018; Accepted 14 June 2018; Published 12 July 2018 Academic Editor: Mohamed Mabrouk Copyright © 2018 Jones Asafo Akowuah et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Maternal health care has become a major concern on international fora in the 21st century. Even though major interventions have been taken to scale up maternal health care locally, nationally, and globally, adequate utilisation has not been achieved due to system-induced setbacks, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. e study explored the facilitators and barriers to antenatal care use in periurban Ghana. Seventeen (17) respondents consisting of four mothers receiving ANC services, four mothers receiving postnatal care with their ANC experience, four midwives, and four nurses with the District Public Health Nurse were involved in the study. e exploratory case study design was used with respondents comprising two focus groups and interview participants. Using thematic analysis, the results revealed that restrictive factors like travel time, long waiting time, transport cost, service cost, quality of service, and attitude of hospital staff still act as constraining factors even after the introduction of free maternal health care. e study concludes that practices like focused ANC and routine monitoring to facilities among others have increased utilisation. e study therefore recommends that to ensure adequate utilisation, the government and other stakeholders should offer support to the less-privileged mothers. Again, services should be easily available at facilities to pregnant women even if they are to be bought. It is further recommended that antenatal care services should be reoriented and clinical psychologists should be placed at all health centres to empower health staff on the best attitude towards clients. Interventions if mainstreamed into the national maternal health policy could be useful. 1. Background Good health is a key human development indicator, and it ensures quality of life and the capacity to participate in productive activities [1]. Good health ensures people’s involvement in all sectors of economy and increased well- being through wealth creation. Good health of women will also act as an important component in the measurement of human capital [2]. erefore, all means to ensure good health, which includes the provision and use of health- care services, including maternal health services thus emerges as an important public health and policy is- sue and a matter of concern to stakeholders. is reflects in efforts to improve health outcomes and to meet international obligations to make health care broadly accessible [3, 4]. Improved and effective antenatal care brings desired outcomes to pregnant women and their babies [5]. A good start in life means empowering women and children as health impression of early development and education of people last in generations [6, 7]. According to Mason et al. [8], about 80% of maternal deaths occur worldwide through pregnancy complications, delivery, and the period of postpartum. It is widely observed in developing countries that structural, personal, and service-related factors influ- ence the rate antenatal care is accessed and used [9]. However, these acknowledged factors can be addressed by considering the realities on the ground in local settings. Hindawi Obstetrics and Gynecology International Volume 2018, Article ID 4381708, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/4381708