Availability and use of services for maternal and child health care in rural Nigeria

Abstract

A personal in-home interview was conducted in four rural towns in Nigeria. The aims of the interview were to describe the content of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) care in these rural towns and to assess how patterns of prenatal, delivery and postnatal service use are related to a variety of demographic and socioeconomic variables in the population. Findings from data analysis indicate that services available are deficient in terms of the number of centers and content of care. Variables found to be statistically significant (P less than 0.01) for use of services are maternal education, occupation, distance and previous use of a physician. Husband's occupation was significant only for prenatal registration, but not for subsequent use of services. Recommendations include a reorganization of rural MCH services and an introduction of female literacy programs, especially at the rural level.

Effect of Government-Community Healthcare Co-Financing on Maternal and Child Healthcare in Nigeria

“…The attainment of post secondary education is therefore associated with better utilization of maternal and child health services in health facilities. This finding agrees with the observation from a Jordianian study 14 and also similar studies in Nigeria by Brieger and Luchok, 15 Okafor, 16 Nwakoby 13 and the report of the Nigerian Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) of 2003. 3 In addition, Harrison has shown that female literacy is not only one of the indicators of assessing socio-economic development but is also positively associated with utilization of maternal health services.…”

Determinants of urban-rural differentials of antenatal care utilization in Nigeria

“…Most studies discussed elaborately on the determinants of utilization of antenatal care or the pattern of use of antenatal care in a specific state, region or locality. Only few studies considered the determinants of the pattern of antenatal care use at the national level (Okafor, 1991;Nwakoby 1994;Osubor et al 2006). This limited the abilities of most studies to give a representative policy and programme recommendation for Nigeria.…”

Territorial Development

“…Watts (1983) referred to them as indigenous towns. In the context of Nigeria, such places are rural towns (Anong and Dipeolu, 1983;Okafor, 1991;Okafor and Okunji, 1996;Adegoke et al, 2010). Voss (2008) notes that the advantages of these developed commercial nodes lead to rapidly rising land values, which are indicative of urbanism in rural areas.…”