Improving access to preventive maternal health care using reminders: Experimental evidence from Guatemala

•Experiment designed to improve access to prenatal care in a low-resource setting.•The intervention consisted of timely reminders delivered in person by health care workers.•Prenatal doctor visits increased by 3.4-7.8 percentage points.•Effect was larger for women with riskier pregnancies (older women and those with a previous miscarriage).

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to improve access to prenatal care of pregnant women in a low-resource setting. A simple intervention of timely reminders delivered in person by community health care workers was found to increase prenatal doctor visits by 3.4-7.8 percentage points. The effect was larger for women with riskier pregnancies.