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Women’s Status and Empowerment within the Household as a Determinant of Adequate Antenatal Care Visits in Malawi. A Population-Based Study


 Background Research has linked women status and empowerment to an improved health status of the general population. However, there is a deficiency of pragmatic data to support how females’ position within the household may impact adequate antenatal care (ANC) visits in Malawi. Therefore, this study explored whether the women’s status and empowerment influence adequate ANC visits in Malawi.Methods The current study sampled and analyzed ever-married women of reproductive age from the 2010 and 2015–16 Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys (MDHS). The two-level multilevel multivariable analyses were performed by means of the generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) to investigate the relationships between the women’s status and empowerment within the household and adequate ANC visits while controlling for covariates.Results About 46% and slightly over 50% of participants had adequate ANC visits in 2010 and 2015–16 respectively. The GLMMs shows that women with no formal education (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.71; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.54–0.94) and primary education (aOR: 0.65; 95% CI: 0.53–0.80) had reduced odds of achieving adequate ANC visits. Additionally, younger women, women from the poorest households, women who did not have access to media and women who resided in the northern region had reduced odds of achieving adequate ANC visits. The GLMMs also revealed variations in the communities with respect to the odds of achieving adequate ANC visits.Conclusion The association of women’s education on adequate ANC visits underscores the need for policymakers’ to think through incorporating education sector in ANC settings to increase health-related knowledge among women of reproductive age in order to inform them of the importance of achieving adequate ANC visits.