Ngambi, WF;
Collins, JH;
Colbourn, T;
Mangal, T;
Phillips, A;
Kachale, F;
Mfutso-Bengo, J;
... Hallett, TB; + view all
(2022)
Socio-demographic factors associated with early antenatal care visits among pregnant women in Malawi: 2004–2016.
PLoS ONE
, 17
, Article e0263650. 10.1371/journal.pone.0263650.
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Abstract
Introduction In 2016, the WHO published recommendations increasing the number of recommended antenatal care (ANC) visits per pregnancy from four to eight. Prior to the implementation of this policy, coverage of four ANC visits has been suboptimal in many low-income settings. In this study we explore socio-demographic factors associated with early initiation of first ANC contact and attending at least four ANC visits (“ANC4+”) in Malawi using the Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS) data collected between 2004 and 2016, prior to the implementation of new recommendations. Methods We combined data from the 2004–5, 2010 and 2015–16 MDHS using Stata version 16. Participants included all women surveyed between the ages of 15–49 who had given birth in the five years preceding the survey. We conducted weighted univariate, bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analysis of the effects of each of the predictor variables on the binary endpoint of the woman attending at least four ANC visits and having the first ANC attendance within or before the four months of pregnancy (ANC4+). To determine whether a factor was included in the model, the likelihood ratio test was used with a statistical significance of P< 0.05 as the threshold. Results We evaluated data collected in surveys in 2004/5, 2010 and 2015/6 from 26386 women who had given birth in the five years before being surveyed. The median gestational age, in months, at the time of presenting for the first ANC visit was 5 (inter quartile range: 4–6). The proportion of women initiating ANC4+ increased from 21.3% in 2004–5 to 38.8% in 2015.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Socio-demographic factors associated with early antenatal care visits among pregnant women in Malawi: 2004–2016 |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0263650 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263650 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2022 Ng’ambi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health > Infection and Population Health |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10144213 |
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