Consulta prenatal: motivos de inasistencia, ？se justifica?

objective: to know what personal (epidemiological, socioeconomic), institutional and medical factors are related to non attendance to prenatal care. setting: department of obstetrics and gynecology, hospital "dr. adolfo prince lara", puerto cabello, estado carabobo. methods: descriptive, epidemiological, analytical, transversal study, based in a interview-survey, in 1000 patients with no prenatal care in the actual or previous pregnancy during 2008. results: in epidemiological factors, prevailed suburb residency (57.2 %), high school education (59.7%), marital status single (48.1 %), and age between 20-29 years (40.4 %). in social factors, predominated distant residence (52.3 %), in the economical, unemployment (27.3 %) and in prenatal education, ignorance of the importance of the prenatal care (48.8 %). in the institutional factors was determinant unappropriated environment (39.2 %) and distant location of the health center (19.3 %). in the medical attention factors, reported low quality of the consultation (29.8 %), followed by few hours of attendance (23.2 %). conclusion: the lack of prenatal care is related to multiple factors, that suggest the instauration of educative activities to elevate the life quality, rescue of the health preventive programs, and repairing and equip of health infrastructure; without forget the improvement of the medical act.