The relationship between prenatal care, personal alcohol abuse and alcohol abuse in the home environment

Nearly one-fourth of African-American women receive no prenatal care during the first trimester of pregnancy. The aim of the current study is to identify factors that underlie inadequate prenatal care among African-American women. Maternal alcohol abuse has been examined as one risk factor for inadequate prenatal care, but findings have been inconsistent, perhaps because (a) alcohol use during pregnancy is substantially under-reported and (b) studies have not considered the wider social network in which maternal alcohol use takes place. The current study attempts to clarify relationships between personal alcohol use, alcohol use in the home environment, and prenatal care in a sample of post-partum women.

Participants were 107 low-income, primarily African-American women. All participants completed a computer-based screening which assessed personal and environmental alcohol use, prenatal care and mental health.

Environmental alcohol use was related to delayed prenatal care while personal alcohol use was not. More specifically, after controlling for demographic variables, the presence of more than three person-episodes of binge drinking in a woman's home environment increased the odds of seriously compromized prenatal care by a factor of seven.

Findings suggest the need to further assess environmental alcohol use and to examine the reliability of personal alcohol use measures.