Abstract:
Background: Early commencement of antenatal care by pregnant women as well as regular
visits has important to early diagnosis and management of complications both related to
pregnancy and medical conditions of mother and fetus. World Health Organization
recommended a woman without complications should have at least four antenatal care visits,
the first of which should take place during the first trimester According to Ethiopian
demographic and health survey report of 2016, 80% of pregnant women were late initiate
their first antenatal care. In this regard, there is limited information in our study area. The
aim of this study was to assess the proportion of late booking first antenatal care visit and the
associated factors.
Method: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted from February 01-30 2018.
Simple random sampling technique was employed to select the study subjects. A total of 535
women were included in the study. Data were collected using a structured and pre-tested
questionnaire; Data was entered in EpiData version 3.1 and SPSS version 22 was used for
data analysis. Multivariable logistic regression was carried out to identify factors associated
with the outcome variable. P-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Result: The proportion of late first antenatal care visit, was 337(66%, 95% CI of 62.7%,
70.3%) Those pregnant women of 25 age and above. (AOR = 1.59, 95% CI: 1.01, 2.48),
whose pregnancies were unplanned (AOR=2.23; 95% CI: 1.33, 3.74), perceived right time
of ANC after 4 month (AOR=2.34; 95% CI: 1.39, 3.94), attended secondary school (AOR
=2.33, 95% CI: 1.05, 5.19), did not get advised (AOR=1.65, 95% CI (1.10, 2.47), and those
who confirmed their pregnancy by missing period (AOR=0.61; 95% CI: 0.39, 0.94) were
found to be associated with late presentation of first antenatal care.
Conclusion: The majority of the pregnant women initiate ANC late. The factors like the
status women’s education, age, pregnancy intention, perception on right time of antenatal
care and get advise significant by other were found to be associated with late initiation of
first antenatal care visit. Therefore, strategies should be designed to intensify advocacy of
female education and family planning should be enhanced to prevent unplanned or unwanted
pregnancies, maintain local information dissemination network on antenatal care and its
right time of commencement should be organized and implemented.
