Unintended pregnancy and women's use of prenatal care in Ecuador

This paper assesses the relationship between unintended pregnancy - both un wanted and mistimed - and several dimensions of use of prenatal care among women in Ecuador, where the level of unintended pregnancy has risen conside rably in recent years. Data were collected from a nationally representative sample of 3988 women interviewed in the 1994 Demographic and Maternal-Chil d Health Survey. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess jointl y the effect of pregnancy intention status (unwanted, mistimed, planned) on three aspects of prenatal care use while controlling for potential confoun ders. Women with unwanted pregnancies were 32% less likely than women with planned pregnancies to seek out prenatal care. Women with unwanted pregnanc ies were also 25% less likely to initiate care in the first trimester and 2 9% less likely to receive at least an adequate number of visits. Mistimed p regnancy was not associated with receiving care, timely initiation of care or receiving an adequate number of visits. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.