Introduction: Kenya introduced free maternity services in June 2013. The main study objective was to investigate the effect of this intervention on maternal and newborn health and specifically to determine differences in 4th antenatal care visits, facility deliveries, post-abortion care, and occurrence of facility-based maternal and neonatal deaths two years pre-and-post intervention.
Methods: The study site was Gem Sub-County, Kenya. The study design was an interrupted time series (ITS). Longitudinal data from the District Health Information Software (DHIS2) were analyzed by the Chow test and segmented linear regression.
Results: In the post-intervention period, 4th antenatal care visits decreased by .6% (p = .839); facility deliveries decreased by 1.6% (p = .616); post-abortion care uptake increased by 54.4% (p = .000); maternal deaths increased by 10.1% (p = .192) whereas neonatal deaths decreased by .1% (p = .466).
Conclusion: The intervention had a significant influence on the uptake of post-abortion care.