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Introduction: Despite the importance of prenatal care in decreasing maternal and neonatal mortality, uptake remains suboptimal in Burkina Faso. This article documents the reasons for non-uptake of prenatal care, by focusing on women who either completely renounce or delay their access to prenatal care. Methods: Qualitative data collection was performed in the rural town of Kokologho from October 2013 to January 2014. Different collection methods were used: participant observation, twenty-two individual semi-structured interviews with women who accessed prenatal care as a late option and eight informal interviews with key informants identified in the community. Results: Thematic analysis revealed four barriers against the effective use of prenatal care by women: (1) lack of knowledge about the prenatal care schedule and purpose (2) perception of pregnancy and prenatal care (3) socioeconomic barriers: direct payment for prenatal care and the limited autonomy of women, and (4) perception of the quality of prenatal care. Discussion: Based on these observations, non-uptake of prenatal care is discussed using different types of explanatory typologies adopted for this study: non-knowledge, non-claiming by choice or constraints and non-receipt of care. This theoretical approach reveals that failures in healthcare services as well as the dichotomy between social representations and medical standards of pregnancy and prenatal care contribute to the exclusion of some women from the prenatal care system.