Multilevel modelling of factors associated with eight or more antenatal care contacts in low and middle-income countries: findings from national representative data

Background: Antenatal care (ANC) is the care provided by skilled healthcare professionals to pregnant women in order to ensure the best health conditions for both mother and baby. Antenatal care provides a platform for important healthcare functions including risk identification, prevention and management of pregnancy-related diseases. Inadequate ANC utilization is a global problem especially for low and middle-income countries. The 2016 WHO ANC model with a minimum of eight ANC visits was aimed to provide pregnant women with person specific care at every contact. However, there are limited studies that investigate the associated factors of inadequate ANC after the endorsement of the WHO 2016 guideline. Therefore, to enrich the evidence in the low and middle-income countries (LMICs), this study aimed to determine the pooled prevalence and associated with eight or more ANC contacts during pregnancy. Methods: This study used data from 20 LMICs that have a recent Demographic and Health Survey. About 43 720 women aged 15–49 years who had live births within the year prior to the surveys were included. To identify associated factors of 8 or more ANC contacts, we used multilevel binary logistic regression, and four models were constructed. The results have been presented as odds ratios with 95% CIs, and P values less than 0.05 were considered significant factors for greater than or equal to 8 ANC contacts. Results: In LMICs, the pooled utilization of 8 or more ANC contact was 18.11% (95% CI: 12.64, 23.58), and it ranged from 0.27% in Rwanda to 76.62% in Jordan. In the final multilevel logistic regression model, women with higher education [adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=3.83, 95% CI: 3.32, 4.41], husbands with higher education (AOR=1.98, 95% CI: 1.72, 2.28), women who have access to media (AOR=1.32, 95% CI: 1.19, 1.45), women with decision-making autonomy (AOR=1.52, 95% CI: 1.39, 1.66), women aged 35–49 years (AOR=1.70, 95% CI: 1.5, 1.91), women from communities with high media access (AOR=1.38, 95% CI: 1.23, 1.53), and husbands residing in communities with high literacy (AOR=1.76, 95% CI: 1.55, 1.98) were associated with higher odds of greater than or equal to 8 ANC contacts. Conversely, women with a birth order of greater than or equal to 6 (AOR=0.65, 95% CI: 0.56, 0.76), women who perceive the distance to a health facility as a significant problem (AOR=0.90, 95% CI: 0.83, 0.96), those with unwanted pregnancies (AOR=0.85, 95% CI: 0.78, 0.93), delayed initiation of ANC (AOR=0.26, 95% CI: 0.23, 0.3), women from households with the richest wealth index (AOR=0.45, 95% CI: 0.40, 0.52), and rural residents (AOR=0.47, 95% CI: 0.43, 0.51) were associated with lower odds of ≥8 ANC contacts. Conclusion and recommendations: In compliance with the WHO guideline, the number of ANC contacts is low in LMICs. Individual-level, household-level, and community-level variables were associated with greater than or equal to 8 ANC contacts. Therefore, implementation strategies should focus on the identified factors in order to achieve the new WHO recommendation of greater than or equal to 8 ANC contacts.