Association between antenatal care visits and adverse pregnancy outcomes: a retrospective cross-sectional study among Ghanaian women

Abstract Background The study aimed to determine the association between antenatal visits and adverse pregnancy outcomes among Ghanaian women in the North East Region.Methods We analysed data on the birth records of 2907 women who delivered at Baptist Medical Centre between January 2018 to December 2018. Binary logistic regression was used to assess the association between antenatal visits and four adverse pregnancy outcomes – preterm birth, low birth weight, small-for-gestational-age, and stillbirth. Results Our analysis showed that ANC attendance offered some protection against preterm birth, low birth weight, small-for-gestational-age, and stillbirth in the study sample, albeit with variations in the protective effect depending on the number of visits attended. An increase in the number of ANC visits was associated with a decrease in the occurrence of the adverse pregnancy outcomes, except for low birth weight where the protective effect was observed only after four ANC visits. Adolescent mothers attended the least number of ANC visits during the study period. Our analysis suggests that the effect of ANC attendance on preterm birth and low birth weight differed depending on the age of the mother. Among mothers who never attended any ANC visits, adolescent mothers and older mothers had higher odds of low birth weight compared to mothers aged 20-30years. Surprisingly, the odds of preterm birth among the mothers who never attended any ANC visits was lower in adolescent mothers and older mothers compared to mothers aged 20-30years. For mothers who attended four or more ANC visits, the odds of low birth weight were higher in adolescent mothers and lower in older mothers compared to mothers aged 20-30years. However, the odds of preterm birth among the mothers who attended more than four ANC visits was higher in adolescent mothers and older mothers compared to mothers aged 20-30years. Conclusion The findings highlight the importance of ANC in preventing adverse pregnancy outcomes and the need for every pregnant woman to initiate and ensure adequate ANC contacts. The results also highlight the need to prioritise adolescents and older pregnant women for ANC.