To promote the health and survival of mothers and babies, Kenya has adapted the
WHO goal-oriented Antenatal Care (ANC) package, popularly known as focused
ANC (FANC). The Ministry of Health (MOH) has designed new guidelines for ANC
services, placing emphasis on refocusing antenatal care, birth planning and emergency
preparedness, and the identification, prevention and management of life threatening
complications during pregnancy and childbirth. ANC visits are now used as an entry
point for a range of other services, thus promoting comprehensive integrated service
delivery. A major challenge, however, is whether the Kenyan health care system can
cope with the implementation of this package. The objectives of this study were to
assess the MOH’ s capacity to adapt focused ANC at the service delivery level so that
it can be sustained, and to examine the extent to which adaptation of the package has
increased coverage and quality of key ANC services and the overall quality of care
received by pregnant women.