The 2016 WHO guideline on routine antenatal care (ANC) recommends several health systems interventions to improve quality of care and increase use of services including: Midwife-led continuity of care throughout the antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal periods Task shifting components of ANC, including promotion of health-related behaviors and distribution of nutrition supplements Recruitment ...

This paper examined the association between individual and local level factors and the number of antenatal care visits completed by women in Colombia using data from the 2010 Colombian Demographic and Health Survey and multilevel logistic regression models. Our findings suggest that, in addition to maternal socioeconomic status, contextual factors influence whether pregnant women complete the m...

Background & aim: Birth asphyxia is a serious clinical problem and a leading cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity worldwide. The majority of neonatal deaths arise in low- and middle-income countries. We sought to address birth asphyxia and its associated factors among newborns delivered in Jimma zone public hospitals, Southwest Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 36...

Records of 300 antenatal clinic attendees of a Nigerian teaching hospital were analysed. Results show that many of them obtained care only late in pregnancy and inadequately. Reasons for the delay in seeking antenatal care should be further investigated.

BACKGROUND An effective continuum of maternal care ensures that mothers receive essential health packages from pre-pregnancy to delivery, and postnatally, reducing the risk of maternal death. However, across Africa, coverage of skilled birth attendance is lower than coverage for antenatal care, indicating mothers are not retained in the continuum between antenatal care and delivery. This paper ...

BACKGROUND Global coverage of prevention of mother-to-child (PMTCT) services reached 53% in 2009. However the number of pregnant women who test positive for HIV in antenatal clinics and who link into long-term HIV care is not known in many resource-poor countries. We measured the proportion of HIV-positive pregnant women in Mwanza city, Tanzania, who completed the cascade of care from antenatal...

BACKGROUND Congenital syphilis is a consequence of undiagnosed, untreated, or inadequately treated maternal syphilis and results in serious adverse outcomes. It is easily diagnosed and in Ghana it is treated at points of care free; yet most pregnant women attending antenatal clinic (ANC) in Ghana are not screened. This study identified some factors influencing syphilis screening uptake at medic...

BACKGROUND The quality of antenatal care is recognized as critical to the effectiveness of care in optimizing maternal and child health outcomes. However, research has been hindered by the lack of a theoretically-grounded and psychometrically sound instrument to assess the quality of antenatal care. In response to this need, the 46-item Quality of Prenatal Care Questionnaire (QPCQ) was develope...

INTRODUCTION Antenatal and postnatal care services are significant interventions to improve maternal health and prevent maternal and infant deaths. However, these services are poorly developed in Bangladesh, particularly among Indigenous women. This study examined factors associated with antenatal and postnatal care visits among the Mru, the most underprivileged Indigenous people in Bangladesh....

AIM This paper is a report of a systematic review to identify and analyse the main factors affecting the utilization of antenatal care in developing countries. BACKGROUND Antenatal care is a key strategy for reducing maternal mortality, but millions of women in developing countries do not receive it. DATA SOURCES A range of electronic databases was searched for studies conducted in developi...