RESUMO
PIP: Because of the spread of western health care into rural Mexican communities through primary health care programs and medical school graduates performing their year of community service, the proportion of rural Mexican women whose deliveries were attended by physicians increased from 17.7% in 1969 to 45.8% in 1981. The primary objective of this work is to identify factors involved in the utilization of the modern medical system for prenatal care and of hospital delivery in transitional rural areas. A secondary objective is to evaluate the impact of modern prenatal care and hospital delivery on perinatal and neonatal mortality. The data came from a 1981 survey by the Mexican Institute of Social Security of a nationally representative sample of 7953 fertile-aged women in 410 communities with fewer than 2500 inhabitants. The survey provided information on both utilization of health services and on medical and biological conditions that might have prompted women to seek modern medical care. This study was limited to 1579 pregnancies which arrived at term in the 13 months preceding the survey. Among dependent variables, the variable for prenatal care was a 1st prenatal visit in the 1st 5 months of pregnancy. 486 women, about 31% of the sample, had such a visit. 69% of the subsample of 1579 women had had some form of prenatal care, of whom 63% had their 1st consultation in the 1st 5 months. 36% of deliveries occurred in hospitals. There were 64 prenatal or neonatal deaths in the 1579 pregnancies, including 38 deaths in the 1st month and 26 stillbirths. The independent variables included 5 factors measuring health facilities available in the community, 3 assessing the commercial center used by the community, and 2 assessing the respondent's housing. The 2 individual factors were birth order and education. 7 factors concerned symptoms of pregnancy and 4 complications during delivery. The multivariate analysis of these factors was carried out by logistic regression. The availability of different types of health services in the community was not a significant predictor of utilization of prenatal services, but existence of a good road was associated with a 30% increase in probability of using medical services and presence in the community of persons speaking only an indigenous language was associated with a 57% decline in probability. Use of prenatal services and hospital delivery were also associated with maternal educational level and housing characteristics. The results appear to indicate the isolation, poverty, and lack of familiarity with western culture constitute important barriers to use of modern maternal health services. The analysis suggests that the policy of providing medical facilities at the community level has had little effect on the extremely disparate use of prenatal care and hospital delivery in rural Mexico.^ieng