Abstract

Every year, around the world, maternal deaths contribute to more than half a million deaths, and of these, 99%
occur in developing countries, and 286,000 are the result of complications that can be avoided through fitting
antenatal care in terms of early antenatal care booking and follow-up visits as often as possible. Antenatal care
(ANC) is a key preventive wellbeing benefit utilised in developed nations and around the world by providing
hopeful mothers with regular health evaluations and information about the course of pregnancy, labour, birth, and
parenthood. This care ought to begin from the start of pregnancy and end at delivery. This study aimed at
determining the timing of the first antenatal visit, associated factors, and proportion of pregnant women who make
their first antenatal visit with the recommended time among pregnant mothers attending antenatal care at
Kampala International University Teaching Hospital, Bushenyi. This was a hospital-based, cross-sectional
observational and analytic study. We recruited 220 randomly selected participants from the antenatal clinic to
participate in the study. Univariate analysis, bivariate analysis, and multivariate logistic regression were done
using STATA version 14.0 to identify factors associated with the timing of the first antenatal visit. Odds ratios
with a 95% confidence interval were computed to determine the level of significance at bivariate analysis, whereas
adjusted odds ratios were calculated at multivariate analysis to establish independent significant factors. The mean
age of the study participants was 27 years, with a standard deviation of 6 years from the mean. The minimum age
was 16 years, while the maximum age was 41 years. The mean timing of the first antenatal visit was 18 weeks.
Participants who made the first ANC visit within the recommended time were 31.36% (69/220), while 68.64%
(151/220) were late. Age, marital status, education level, gravidity, planned pregnancy good attitude towards
ANC, perceived attitude of health workers, and waiting time were independently associated with the timing of the
first antenatal visit among the study participants. The study revealed that the majority of pregnant women who
visited the clinic began antenatal care later than the WHO-recommended period of within three months of
pregnancy. The main reasons cited for the late start of ANC call for raising awareness of the best period to start
ANC and the importance of starting ANC early.