Improving maternal and newborn care: assessment of content of antenatal and postnatal care from report from women during household surveys

Agbessi Amouzou, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Ziqi Meng, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Liliana Carvajal-Velez, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Kim Dickson, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
Holly Newby, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

Background: To track maternal and newborn health care, household surveys focus on coverage of antenatal (ANC), skilled birth attendance (SBA) and postnatal care (PNC). Yet these metrics only assess contact, not content or quality of care. Methodology: We used DHS data from 2010-2014 from 21 countries. We analysed the proportion of pregnant women with >1 ANC and those with >=4 visits, who received eight interventions and newborns delivered with SBA who received seven interventions. We ran random effect logistic regression to assess factors associated with receiving all interventions. Results: Very low proportion of women and newborn received all selected interventions. Average of 6% of women with at least one ANC visit received all eight interventions. For those with >=4 visits, 8% received all interventions. On average 5% of newborns received all seven postnatal interventions. Conclusion: Closing the large coverage-quality gap will require improving coverage as well as quality of care.