Women with disabilities' use of maternal care services in sub-Saharan Africa

Quality maternal health care is central to the Sustainable Development Goals efforts to reduce maternal mortality, yet there remain limited quantitative data on maternal care inequities for women with disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa.

This study aims to understand the differences in maternal care providers for women with and without disabilities.

We used Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys from 13 sub-Saharan African countries conducted between 2017-2020. We used logistic and multinomial logistic regression to examine the relationship between disability (Washington Group definition) and antenatal care attendance and the type of care provider for antenatal care, skilled birth attendance, and postnatal and postpartum checks. All analyses were adjusted for age, wealth, country, and location.

The sample included 10 021 women, including 306 (3.1%) women with disabilities. There were small absolute and no relative differences in antenatal care attendance, qualified antenatal care provider, postnatal, and postpartum checks, for disabled and women without disabilities. Women with disabilities had some evidence of higher odds of having a doctor at their birth compared to women without disabilities (aOR = 1.52, 95% CI: 0.99-2.33).

This study shows small absolute and no relative differences between women with and without disabilities for antenatal access and provider types for maternal care, though these findings are limited by a small sample and no data on care quality, acceptability, or outcomes. More research on care quality and outcomes is needed.

This study is the first quantitative, multi-country study in sub-Saharan Africa to examine maternal care seeking patterns, demonstrating important data on maternal health indicators for women with disabilities.