In conclusion, this paper examined the e ect of pregnancy intention on the timing of first antenatal visit among pregnant females in Rwanda. The analysis suggests that women with unintended pregnancies are sig-nificantly more likely to delay initiating ANC. This e ect persists even after controlling for the influence of sociodemographic and socioeco-nomic variables, suggesting pregnancy intention is independently asso-ciated with maternal behaviour. The cross-sectional nature of the data limits conclusions of this study and prevent us from drawing a definitive causal relationship between pregnancy intention and time to first ante-natal visit. Nonetheless, this study importantly points to the potential role of pregnancy intention in shaping maternal health service utiliza-tion within the context of SSA, an issue that has hitherto received little attention compared to similar issues in developed countries Fig. 2.