BACKGROUND Despite the potential of prenatal care for addressing many pregnancy complications and concurrent health problems, non-western women in industrialized western countries more often make inadequate use of prenatal care than women from the majority population do. This study aimed to give a systematic review of factors affecting non-western women's use of prenatal care (both medical care...

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...

BACKGROUND Prenatal care is considered to be an important component of primary health care. Our study compared prenatal care utilization and rates of adverse birth outcomes for mothers from low- and higher-income areas of New Mexico between 1989 and 1999. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Prenatal care indicators included the number of prenatal care visits and the first month of prenatal care. B...

BACKGROUND Prenatal care is a comprehensive antepartum care program involving a coordinated approach to medical care and psychosocial support that is optimally offered before conception. Inadequate care during pregnancy can lead to undesirable outcomes, including preterm labor and low birth weight. One of these new, accurate, and comprehensive indicator measurements is adequacy of prenatal care...

OBJECTIVE CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care has been demonstrated to improve pregnancy outcomes. However, there is likely variation in how the model is implemented in clinical practice, which may be associated with efficacy, and therefore variation, in outcomes. We examined the association of fidelity to process and content of the CenteringPregnancy group prenatal care model with outcomes ...

BACKGROUND Prenatal care coverage is still not universal or adequately provided in many low and middle income countries. One of the main barriers regards the presence of socioeconomic inequalities in prenatal care utilization. In Brazil, prenatal care is supplied for the entire population at the community level as part of the Family Health Strategy (FHS), which is the main source of primary car...

OBJECTIVE To define the prenatal care utilization pattern in Bornova and determine the factors affecting the amount and content of prenatal care. DESIGN Follow-up study. SETTING Bornova is an urban district in western Turkey. STUDY PARTICIPANTS Two hundred and forty-five pregnant women registered with primary care settings in Bornova during the year 2000. Response rate was 83.7%. Main out...

BACKGROUND Pregnancy complications are one of the major public health concerns. One of the main causes of preventable complications is the absence of or inadequate provision of prenatal care. The present study was conducted to investigate whether Extended Parallel Process Model's constructs can predict the utilization of prenatal care services. METHODS The present longitudinal prospective stu...

OBJECTIVES We examined trends and racial disparities (White, African American) in trimester of prenatal care initiation and adequacy of prenatal care utilization for US women and specific high-risk subgroups, e.g., unmarried, young, or less-educated mothers. METHODS Data from 1981-1998 US natality files on singleton live births to US resident mothers were examined. RESULTS Overall, early an...