Influence of adolescent pregnancy on maternal health care services. Does it vary between rural and urban areas?

Kavitha N. Sampath, Institute for Social and Economic Change

Objective of this study is to examine the influence of age of women at birth on the use of recommended prenatal care services (three or more antenatal visits, received two or more tetanus toxoid vaccinations and received iron and folic acid tablets or syrup for three or more months) and place of delivery. For this purpose, National Family Health Survey (NFHS) – 3, India data was used. Logistic regression analysis was used to see the effect of age of women on utilization of recommended antenatal care services and multinomial regression technique was used in the case of place delivery. Multivariate results brought out that in both urban and rural areas, the percent of births to women who had received recommended prenatal care was lower among adolescent women as compared to adult women. The odds of delivering at a private health facility were lower among adolescent women than adult women.