Glad Tako Ngwira^1,, Zhuo Lulin²

World Health Organization (WHO) statistics indicate that Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for the vast majority of global maternal deaths. Specifically, maternal deaths among adolescent mothers in rural settings contribute significantly to high maternal mortality. Among others, adolescent mothers’ susceptibility to maternal deaths has been attributed to utilization of post-natal care (PNC) services. Using the Andersen Behavioral Model of Health Services Use, our study sought to examine factors associated with PNC utilization among adolescent mothers in a northern rural district of Malawi. A structured questionnaire was used to conduct interviews among adolescent mothers. A hierarchical logistic regression analysis was carried out using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Results show that need factors (severe abdominal pains, vaginal bleeding and obstetric complications) was the most significant factor associated with PNC utilization. Further, the study shows that predisposing factors such as age, educational level, marital status had considerable influence on PNC utilization. Lastly, enabling factors such as family income, adolescent mothers’ occupation, distance to health facility positively influenced mothers’ utilization of postnatal health care. The study recommends to health sector practitioners to use the need factors as the baseline in initiating postnatal health care policies and programs for adolescent mothers, while also paying attention to other factors such as predisposing and enabling because they all have the specific role they play in influencing adolescent mothers’ behavior in accessing postnatal health care.

postnatal care utilization, adolescent mothers, maternal mortality, predisposing, enabling, need factors