[Antenatal care and source of care during pregnancy (author's transl)].

The influence of the source of care on the unequalities in the number of antenatal visits was studied in a representative sample of births in France in 1976. The sources of care during pregnancy were divided into five groups according to number and qualification of the medical staff involved: hospital antenatal clinic, gynaecologist or obstetrician, general practitioner, hospital antenatal clinic and other practitioners, several practitioners outside hospital. The number of antenatal visits was related to the source of care. The inequalities in antenatal care according to maternal characteristics originated from inequal access to the most specialized sources of care and disparities in the number of visits within each source of care. Living in a big conurbation was a positive factor for consulting an obstetrician, going to hospital antenatal clinic and having a large number of visits; but even after allowing for this factor, there remained inequalities among women according to their socio-demographic characteristics or the source of care.