TREND IN MATERNAL HEALTH CARE UTILIZATION IN LOKOJA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KOGI STATE, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT This study aimed at assessing maternal health care utilization in Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria. The data used for this study and their sources include; Data on antenatal care; number of monthly antenatal visits. Data on delivery care; number of monthly births. Data on postnatal care; number of women receiving care after delivery on monthly basis. The age of maternal women, education, religion, ethnicity, household size, occupation, income and occupation; this was collected through In-depth interviews from childbearing women and partly hospital records. The result revealed that in 2012, the reported antenatal care was 13,744. In 2013, 13,528 antenatal visits were reported. The number of reported visits of antenatal care increased substantially to 14,346 in 2014 and then dropped drastically to 8,952 visits in 2018, which perhaps represents the lowest reported antenatal care of maternal women in Lokoja. It increased slightly thereafter. Antenatal care increased to 9,974 in 2019. The trend in antenatal care from 2012 to 2019 revealed 14.4% increase, which represents a negligible rise in antenatal care for the period under consideration. Analysis of the time period under review revealed that the lowest number of postnatal visits was recorded in 2014, while the highest was recorded in 2019. The On-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) result shows there is a significant variation in maternal healthcare utilization (F = 1.330, p>0.05). This is consequent upon the probability value of 0.000 being lower than 5% significance level. The result further shows that the numbers of antenatal, delivery and postnatal care vary significantly in the study area. The study recommends that the number of people utilizing maternal health services in public hospitals is large and rising; the government must continue to encourage maternal women to utilize government health facilities to ensure that women have access to adequate maternal care services in the area.