Ante-natal care Maternal health

93 HEALTH Educational attainment of the women has a positive effect on the probability of skilled birth attendance, but the effect is strongest for women who proceed from no education at all to primary education. Also, younger women increasingly rely on skilled birth attendance. Figure 9.4: Percentage of women with a live birth in the ive years preceding the survey who were assisted by skilled birth attendants at last delivery, by province The level of 36 percent of deliveries taking place in health facilities is close to that of skilled birth attendance. Overall, close to two-thirds of deliveries 63 percent take place at home. Rural deliveries take place in health institutions in only 29 percent of the cases, while the corresponding urban share is more than three times as high 69 percent. Besides the different proportions of institutional deliveries between rural and urban women, also the use of private facilities differs: 16 percent of urban women have their births in private facilities against 8 percent of rural women. The present igure of 40 percent skilled delivery assistance indicates a large improvement from the 24 percent recorded in the NRVA 2007-08. This improvement its in the general trend of rapidly improving maternal health care provision observed in successive surveys in Afghanistan since 2003 see Figure 9.5. The trends for ante-natal care coverage and institutional delivery follow similar paths of rapid improvement. 94 HEALTH Figure 9.5: Women with a live birth in the ive years preceding the survey who received maternal health care during their last pregnancy and who delivered in institutional facilities, by survey a in percentages 10 20 30 40 50 60 MICS 2003 NRVA 2005 AHS 2006 NRVA 2007 -08 MICS 2010 NRVA 2011 -12 Ante -natal care Skilled birth attendance Institutional delivery a NRVA 2011-12 uses births in the last ive years, MICS 2010 and 2003, AHS 2006 and NRVA 2007-08 and 2005 use births in the last two years. AHS uses births of only pregnant women, other surveys use those of ever-married women.