One thousand, four hundred and eighty four mothers in a rural area of Northern Nigeria who accounted for all singleton births over a nine-month period were interviewed to determine the influence of utilization of maternity services in the area on pregnancy outcome.

Ninety two percent of the women had their deliveries at home while only 7.9% of the births occurred either at the district rural health centre or hospital.

Twenty four percent of the mothers had initially attended the health centre for ante-natal care.

Seventy two percent of the mothers had no form of ante-natal care, i.e, traditional or western orthodox care.

Only 9.1% of all the deliveries were attended to by a trained nurse/midwife.