Impact of sociodemographic conditions on prenatal care in Latin America

Abstract

Introduction: Prenatal care is a strategy aimed at preventing the possible complications of pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. Several isolated studies have been conducted to identify factors that may negatively affect prenatal care. Objective: To make a qualitative synthesis of the literature regarding the impact of sociodemographic conditions on prenatal care in LatinAmerica. Materials and methods: A literature search was conducted in June 2018 on the EBSCO, Embase, ScienceDirect, LILACS, SciELO, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE-PubMed and Google Scholar databases using the following terms: “prenatal care” AND “Health services accessibility” AND “Pregnancy, Health services accessibility” AND “Pregnancy, prenatal care” AND “Health services accessibility”. No time limits were considered in the search. Results: Thirteen articles with information relevant to the development of the present review were found. Conclusions: The available literature suggests that unfavourable socio-demographic conditions may have a negative impact on prenatal care. Household care, care of other children, affiliation to the social security system, obligation to work and unemployment seem to be the main factors affecting the quality of prenatal care.