INTRODUCTION:
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that the first antenatal care visit should be within the first trimester (within 12 weeks). However, the timeous utilization of antenatal care services (ANC) among young women aged 15 – 24 in Sub-Saharan Africa is still a predominant health problem in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, The Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria, that consequently leads to long term complications of physical and psychological health, a deteriorated economy, social status of young women and mortality as well as threatens the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 3 (target 3.1 and 3.8). Given the insufficiency of studies focusing on the timing of antenatal care services among young women this chapter investigated factors associated with the timing of antenatal care services among young women in sub-Saharan Africa.

METHODS:
The study pooled data from of six Demographic and Health Surveys. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was conducted to estimate the survival time and Cox proportional hazard regression model to determine factors associated with the time to initiation the first ANC visit using STATA software package.

RESULTS:
The median survival time to the first antenatal care was 18 weeks and the respondents age, level of education, marital status, place of residence, wealth status, parity and pregnancy intention were statistically significant predictors.

CONCLUSIONS:
The timing of antenatal care services is still untimely considering the recommendation by the World Health Organization. Therefore, interventions aimed at elevating educational levels integrated with maternal health information, women empowerment is necessary to increase the timely use of antenatal care services among young women in Sub-Saharan Africa.