By means of expanded national prenatal care program, pregnancy complications and maternal mortality are decreasing to achieve Millennium Development Goals in Islamic Republic of Iran. In this way, numbers of maternal visits by health professionals have increased significantly but in order to decline maternal mortality rate, we have to improve quality of cares. To assess prenatal care by scoring system and comparing scores of women with or without peripartum complications. We conducted a case-control study in which the case patients were 87 pregnant mothers with peripartum complications who admitted at Qazvin hospitals. Control group consisted of 87 mothers who admitted at the same hospitals for delivery without complications. Both groups have been followed up to 42 days after delivery. Their histories of prenatal care were entered into a questionnaire, completed by using their health files and interview. One point was allocated to each care item and sum of care scores calculated for each questionnaire. By using of nonparametric methods (Mann Whitney U, Chi sq.), we analyzed observed differences in means of care scores between case and control groups. Mean of prenatal care scores in the groups of mothers with or without peripartum complications were 26.13± 1.01 (95% CI, 24.1to 28.2) and 30.01±1.02 (95% CI, 28.0 to 32.0) respectively. A significant difference observed between mean scores of two groups (p<0.001). Number of prenatal visits in mothers with or without peripartum complications was 12.59±0.45 (95% CI, 11.68 to 13.0) and 11.61±0.45 (95% CI, 10.70 to 12.51) and significant difference between them was not observed. Mothers without complications during their pregnancy and postpartum had better quality of care than complicated ones. In this study higher care score means better maternal cares which consist of standard medical exams during each prenatal care visit and laboratory and sonography examinations according to national protocol of maternal care. Increasing number of prenatal visits without attention to necessary medical exams can`t improve maternal health more than present situation.
