Socio-economic factors associated with antenatal care in Nigeria

There is a dearth of knowledge on how much financial autonomy interacts with affordability and consequently access to ante-natal health care in Nigeria. This study evaluated the relationship between women's financial autonomy and utilization of antenatal care (ANC) services. ANC attendance during pregnancy and the financial autonomy of women aged 15-49 in 42,000 selected households across all 36 states and the FCT, was assessed using data from the 2018 NDHS. Descriptive statistics and bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were carried out and significant predictors were tested at a 95% significance level. The proportion of women considered to have no financial, partial and full autonomies were 63.1%, 32.0% and 4.9% respectively. Living in an urban region was a statistically significant predictor of financial autonomy among women and the odds of financial autonomy increased with the level of education and wealth index. Type of residence and occupation type were also significant predictors of ANC utilization. Full financial autonomy to make financial decisions did not significantly improve the odds of antenatal health care services during pregnancy (OR = 1.03; 95% CI: 0.87 - 1.22). Other factors such as education, employment and wealth index of the women were more significantly associated with antenatal care attendance. A call for improved educational facilities and wealth creation schemes at national and sub-national levels of government is necessary to improve ante-natal care utilization in health care facilities.