In conclusion, this paper examined the 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 significantly more likely to delay initiating ANC. This e ect persists even after controlling for the influence of sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables, suggesting pregnancy intention is independently associated 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.