Prenatal care and socioeconomic status: effect on cesarean delivery

Carine Milcent () and Saad Zbiri ()
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Carine Milcent: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement
Saad Zbiri: Université Paris-Saclay

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Abstract: Cesarean deliveries are widely used in many high-and middle-income countries. This overuse both increases costs and lowers quality of care and is thus a major concern in the healthcare industry. The study first examines the impact of prenatal care utilization on cesarean delivery rates. It then determines whether socioeconomic status affects the use of prenatal care and thereby influences the cesarean delivery decision. Using exclusive French delivery data over the 2008-2014 period, with multilevel logit models, and controlling for relevant patient and hospital characteristics, we show that women who do not participate in prenatal education have an increased probability of a cesarean delivery compared to those who do. The study further indicates that attendance at prenatal education varies according to socioeconomic status. Low socioeconomic women are more likely to have cesarean deliveries and less likely to participate in prenatal education. This result emphasizes the importance of focusing on pregnancy health education, particularly for low-income women, as a potential way to limit unnecessary cesarean deliveries. Future studies would ideally investigate the effect of interventions promoting such as care participation on cesarean delivery rates.

Keywords: Socioeconomic position; Health education; Pregnancy care; Cesarean delivery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-03-10
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05724520v1
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Published in Health Economics Review, 2018, 8, pp.7. ⟨10.1186/s13561-018-0190-x⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-05724520

DOI: 10.1186/s13561-018-0190-x

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