Decline in early prenatal care was accompanied by 5% rise in number of patients who received no prenatal care at all

Fewer women received early and adequate prenatal care in 2023, new data released this week by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows.

The small year-over-year decline comes amid tectonic shifts in women’s rights and access to reproductive healthcare in the US and in spite of a federal government initiative meant to improve prenatal care access. Seventeen states ban abortion at conception or soon after.

Prenatal care is “one of the potentially core measures of the quality of care,” said Eugene Declercq, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University who studies maternal health.