Socioeconomic Determinants of Infant Mortality among Women Attending Antenatal Care in Northern States of Nigeria

This study assessed the socioeconomic determinants of infant mortality among women attending antenatal care in Northern States of Nigeria. To achieve this purpose, a stratified, simple random sampling and proportionate sampling procedure were adopted. Two local government areas and four health facilities were selected from two states of the three Northern geopolitical zones. Namely North West, North East and North Central in Nigeria. The population for this study comprised of 16, 850, 229 women of child bearing age (15-49) who have had at least one child in Northern States of Nigeria. A total number of 400 women of child bearing age were purposively selected from the entire population of child bearing women in Northern States of Nigeria. The questionnaire was pilot tested and the results showed a reliability index of 0.951. The result revealed the appropriateness of the instrument which was then used for data collection. Out of the 400 copies of the questionnaire administered on the respondents, 389 (98.5 %) were found valid and 2 (1.5 %) invalid. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics to answer research questions on the socioeconomic determinants of infant mortality among women attending antenatal care in Northern States of Nigeria. Multinomial logistic regression estimate was used to test the major hypotheses and Chi-square was also used to establish the influence of socio-economic determinants of infant mortality in Northern States of Nigeria. The results revealed that a group of mothers education, occupation, income level, and number of pregnancies were significant determinants at the following P-values (P=0.001, 0.018, 0.016 and 0.000). On the basis of the findings, the following recommendations were made that health care services should be provided throughout Northern States of Nigeria to cater for women attending antenatal care in Northern States of Nigeria by the government. Pregnant women should also be encouraged to go for medical care through enlightenment campaign by health care providers. This would help them seek for medical care and to deliver their babies in hospital or maternity homes rather than their houses.