KARACHI, April 7: Antenatal care, described as a prerequisite for safe delivery and quality survival of mothers, is found to be available to not more than 30 per cent of the local women during pregnancy.

A recently conducted study identifies 23 per cent of the said care to be provided by doctors, three per cent by a nurse or lady health visitor and four per cent by traditional birth attendants.

Percentage of births with no antenatal care increased with the birth order of the mother and was highest for women of the age of 35 and above.

Mothers receiving care from a doctor were slightly younger and of lower parity.

In terms of residence, no antenatal care was received for 83 per cent of births in the rural areas and 40 per cent in urban areas.

Regionally, women in the NWFP had the lowest level of care as 81 per cent received no antenatal care, followed by Punjab (75 per cent), Balochistan (63 per cent) and Sindh (49 per cent).

Women in Balochistan relied more on traditional and trained birth attendants for antenatal care (26 per cent) than women in other regions.

More educated women were considerably more likely to receive antenatal care from a doctor.

Four-fifths of births to mothers with no education were without antenatal care but in marked contrast four-fifths of births to women with secondary education received ante-natal care from doctors.

Both the number and timing of antenatal care visits are thought to have an impact on pregnancy outcome. For slightly less than one quarter of the births, two or more antenatal visits were made, the study said.

In Pakistan about 80 per cent of births were said to take place at home.

Though delivery in a health facility was less common than receiving ante-natal care, more than 90 per cent of all births which occurred in health facilities were to women who had received antenatal care, says the study.

The situation was attributed to the differences in service availability or to complications during pregnancy enabling a woman to seek care at the time of delivery.

It was emphasised that women do not generally recourse to preventive antenatal care, partly because the concept has not been fully understood. Added to this inherent barrier is the fact that women have to travel large distances for antenatal care.—APP