Utilization of antenatal care among pregnant women of urban slums of Dhaka City, Bangladesh

Maternal health services have a potentially critical role in the improvement of reproductive health. The use of health services is related to the availability, quality and cost of the services, as well as to social structure, health beliefs and the personal characteristics of the users. Antenatal care (ANC) is an important determinant of high maternal mortality rate and one of the basic components of maternal care on which the life of mothers and babies depend. It is a key strategy for reducing maternal mortality, but millions of women in developing countries do not receive it. Extracting 3549 women from the 2006-2007 Urban Health Survey, this study assessed the utilization of antenatal care and its related factor in urban slums for pregnant women. A Cross-sectional survey was carried out large, medium and small urban squatter settlements of Dhaka City. Two hundred married women in the age range 15-49 years were interviewed. Socio-demographic characteristics of women who received and who did not receive antenatal care in their previous pregnancy were assessed by frequency distribution and bivariate analysis. Antenatal care used in any of the previous pregnancy among women under study was 861(64.3%). Education and ANC is significantly related suggesting that the higher the level of education the higher is the likelihood of receiving ANC during pregnancy because educated women are aware about the importance of ANC during pregnancy. There is a strong association between the income of the respondents and ANC received by the respondents. This study indicates that overall knowledge about antenatal care was found to be better among women who had utilized antenatal care as compared to women who did not receive antenatal care.. There is also a need to evaluate the services provided by government health facilities and to find out why women are not utilizing the government health services though these services are available at subsidized rate