Parental factors influencing patterns of prenatal care utilization.
OBJECTIVE
The objectives of this study are to examine the influence of paternal and maternal education and marital status on the initiation and adequate use of prenatal care services.


METHODS
Data were obtained from the 1990-1991 Minnesota Live Birth file. Single live births to white resident mothers who were 21 years of age or older were selected for investigation. After these selections 102,798 cases were analyzed.


RESULTS
Logistic regression was used to examine the association of parental characteristics on the following three measures of poor prenatal care use: (1) receiving no prenatal care; (2) initiating care later than the first trimester; and (3) given a first trimester start of care, receiving less than the recommended number of prenatal care visits. Within each maternal education stratum, an increased risk of delayed initiation and less efficient use of prenatal care were observed for lower paternal educational attainment. Unmarried women, regardless of educational level, exhibited more than a tenfold risk of receiving no prenatal care, and unmarried women of low educational attainment exhibited the highest risk of delayed care.


CONCLUSIONS
A persistent positive effect of increasing paternal education on the level of adequacy of prenatal care utilization within all maternal marital status and educational attainment groups poses further challenges to our understanding of the factors that influence prenatal care use.
D'Ascoli
P T
PT
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center, St. Paul, MN 55101, USA.
Alexander
G R
GR
Petersen
D J
DJ
Kogan
M D
MD
D000328:Adult; D004493:Education; D005220:Fathers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017533:Marital Status; D009035:Mothers; D010352:Patient Dropouts; D011247:Pregnancy; D011262:Pregnancy Trimester, Second; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors