Use of maternal health care in most African countries has been associated with several socioeconomic, cultural and demographic factors, although contextual analyses of the latter have been few. Similar previous study in Kano showed that 64% of women with severe obstetric morbidity identified at different hospitals in Kano state Nigeria were in critical conditions upon arrival, underscoring the significance of pre-hospital barriers in this setting with free and accessible maternal health care. This cross-sectional descriptive study explored knowledge and Utilization of maternal health services among Urban and Rural reproductive women. The views of (n=1000) married women within the age group of 14 to 49years were selected randomly both in urban and rural areas. In a two point scale (good, poor), Knowledge of maternal health facilities and services generally show that urban and rural had extremely good knowledge of maternal health service and programs provided by the government with 99.0% of urban and 82.4% of rural. While overall, only 63.4% and 51.4% both urban and rural utilize health facilities and its programs. There was a statistically significant association between the respondents a level of education, income, age and their knowledge score (p = 0.005) for both urban and rural: knowledge of maternal health facilities was higher among those with formal education, high income and younger respondents.
Keywords: Barriers, Knowledge, Maternal Healthcare, Utilization
