ABSTRACT
Background: Safe motherhood initiatives was a worldwide effort launched by WHO in 1987 with an aim to reduce the number of deaths of women associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Appropriate antenatal care (ANC) is one of the pillars of this initiative and an important component of reproductive and child health. The present study was conducted to assess the utilization of antenatal care services, its contributing factors and its impact on birth weight of new-born.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted for a period of 3 months at Ankuli, field practice area of urban health training centre, Department of Community Medicine. A total of 138 mothers (delivered within 2 years) were included by cluster sampling. Women who were sick and did not give consent were excluded from the study. A pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection and analysed in SPSS version 16. Chi-square test and bivariate logistic regression was applied at p value <0.05.Results: About 55.07% of mothers were in 25-34 years of age group, 47.82% had studied secondary education and 36.23% mothers belonged to lower middle-class socioeconomic status (SES). About 60.87% of mothers had availed antenatal services completely. Education of the participant and her husband, SES and family type were significant contributors of ANC service utilization. There was a significant association between complete ANC utilization and birth weight of the baby (p<0.05).Conclusions: The utilisation of the antenatal services was low among the mothers in our study which can be increased by proper IEC activities.