Quality of prenatal care as it relates to the source of prenatal care

Context: Prenatal care is commonly understood to have a beneficial impact on pregnancy outcome. Child survival is directly dependent on good maternal health and nutrition. Aim: To study the variation in counseling of prenatal care measures at different sources of care. Materials and Methods: A cohort of 5,380 observations from the New York State Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System were analyzed to study the relationship between site/source of prenatal care and quality/ content of prenatal care, and the influence of maternal characteristics therewith. Statistical Analysis Software, version 8 (SAS-V8) was used for analysis. Results: The most common source of care was doctor of medicine/health managed care organization (75.89%) followed by hospital clinic (11.22%), community health center (6.5%), health department clinic (4.05%), and others (2.3%). Health department clinic showed a greater prevalence proportion for counseling in all of the five prenatal care measures (talked about breastfeeding, illegal drugs, nutrition, baby’s growth, and smoking) when compared with the remaining four sources of care. Majority of private clinic attendees were whites (87.8%), older mothers (20.7%), and/or high income groups (67.8%). Young mothers preferred visiting health department clinic (22.5%). Average income mothers preferred accessing healthcare from the community health center (26.9%). Conclusion: Variation in quality of care among various sources of care is likely to occur. Maternal characteristics could also influence the selection of source of care.