BACKGROUND Over the last decades there has been a reduction of social inequalities in Brazil, as well as a strong expansion of health services, including prenatal care. The objective of the present study was to estimate the rate of inadequate prenatal care utilization and its associated factors in São Luís, Brazil, in 2010 and to determine whether there was a reduction of inequity in prenatal c...

OBJECTIVE To determine the effectiveness of prenatal home visiting for improving prenatal care utilization and preventing preterm birth and low birth weight. DATA SOURCES Medline, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PsycINFO, and Social Work Abstract databases were searched for articles that examined prenatal home-visiting and prenatal care utilization or neonatal ou...

CONTEXT Two measures traditionally used to examine adequacy of prenatal care indicate that prenatal care utilization remained unchanged through the 1980s and only began to rise slightly in the 1990s. In recent years, new measures have been developed that include a category for women who receive more than the recommended amount of care (intensive utilization). OBJECTIVE To compare the older an...

Data for two birth cohorts from two Brazilian municipalities, Ribeirão Preto in 1994 and São Luís in 1997/1998, were used to identify and compare factors associated with inadequate utilization of prenatal care and to identify factors capable of explaining the differences observed between the two cities. Prenatal care was defined as adequate or inadequate according to the recommendations of the ...

BACKGROUND The effectiveness of prenatal care for improving birth and subsequent child outcomes in low-income countries remains controversial, with much of the evidence to date coming from high-income countries and focused on early-life outcomes. We examined associations between prenatal care visits and birth weight, height-for-age at 24 months and attained schooling in four low- and middle-inc...

BACKGROUND Prenatal healthcare is likely to prevent adverse outcomes, but an adequate review of utilization and its determinants is lacking. OBJECTIVE To review systematically the evidence for the determinants of prenatal healthcare utilization in high-income countries. METHOD Search of publications in EMBASE, CINAHL and PubMed (1992-2010). Studies that attempted to study determinants of pr...

BACKGROUND The aim of prenatal care is to promote good maternal and foetal health and to identify risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes in an attempt to promptly manage and solve them. Although high prenatal care attendance is reported in most areas in Brazil, perinatal and neonatal mortalities are disproportionally high, raising doubts about the quality and performance of the care provid...

BACKGROUND The intent of this investigation was to study the distribution of obstetric providers and prenatal care utilization in Wisconsin and analyze the potential impact of these factors on the frequency of low birth weight. METHODS State perinatal vital statistics and physician professional association surveys were used to compare the frequency of low birth weight, physician distribution,...

maternity child health is one of the important and essential aspects of health services that must be considered as a priority in administrative programs because mothers and their children more than other people in the community are affected by perilous environmental factors. they are very vulnerable that lead to disease, failure to thrive, inability and death. every year, poor hygiene leads to ...

background & aim: prenatal care is a key strategy for achieving public health goals, primary healthcare objectives, and the millennium development goals. the aim of this study was to investigate the factors influencing the use of prenatal care services in order to design suitable interventions and promote the use of these services. methods:in this systematic quantitative literature review, stud...