Introduction:

Dental care is essential in guaranteeing the right to healthy motherhood. In Colombia, prenatal care policies incorporate the promotion, prevention, and care in oral health as part of the comprehensive care that pregnant women must receive within the health system. However, there is no systematic monitoring of compliance with these guidelines.

Objective:

To explore effective care and social inequalities in the provision and use of prenatal dental control in Colombia.

Materials and methods:

This was a descriptive study with data on pregnant women reported in the Fourth National Oral Health Study, 2013-2014. Absolute and relative social inequalities were estimated according to the area of residence, ethnicity, education level, health affiliation regime, and socioeconomic stratum.

Results:

We analyzed the data from 1,050 pregnant women. In total, 88.37% received prenatal control and 57.19%, dental control. We observed a general pattern of social gaps in the effective use of the latter, mainly due to the health insurance regime. The pregnant women with the greatest possibility of having some prenatal dental control, were those with some health insurance (prevalence ratio [RP]=2.62; CI 95%: 2.12-3.12), residents in urban areas (RP= 1,37; CI95%: 1.18-1.56), with higher and/or technical education level (RP=1.20; CI95%: 1.02-1.38) or from mid-high social strata (RP=1.15; CI95%: 1.01-1.29).

Conclusions:

In Colombia, the effective provision of dental control to pregnant women as part of comprehensive prenatal care continues to be a challenge. Significant efforts are required to comply with regulations and reduce social inequalities in access to this service.

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