Determinants of postnatal care non-utilization in Nigeria

Oluwaseyi Somefun, University of the Witwatersrand

This study aims to examine the factors associated with postnatal care non-utilization among women in Nigeria. Although several programs are in place in the country to ensure safe maternal and child health, maternal and neonatal mortality rates remain high. While studies have concentrated on the utilization of maternal health services like antenatal and skilled delivery at birth, studies on postnatal care are rare. Efficient utilisation of postnatal care services has been proven to reduce morbidity and mortality among mothers and their newborns. Thus, identification of the factors that are associated with non-utilization of postnatal care services would help Nigeria in achieving the MDG4 and MDG 4 targets which aim to bring down the levels of child and maternal mortality. The Nigerian Demographic Health Survey 2008 will be used for the study. Analysis is based on the non-utilization of postnatal care of the births of 28,647 children born in the five years preceding the survey. Descriptive statistics will be used to examine the patterns of postnatal care non-utilization by the selected characteristics of women in Nigeria. Cross tabulations and Binary logistic regression will be used to identify factors associated with postnatal care non-utilization in Nigeria at the bivariate and multivariate levels respectively. Estimation results from binary logistic regression show that number of living children, region, place of residence, marital status and accessibility have a significant association on the non-utilization of postnatal care services. In addition, women of higher parity are less likely to utilize postnatal care services.