Exploring the Motives of Women Who Seek (and Those Who Do Not Seek) Institutional Delivery Services in Liberia

BMJ Open published an article, Access to facility delivery and caesarean section in north-central Liberia: a cross-sectional community-based study, that explores the motives of women who seek and those who do not seek institutional delivery services in north-central Liberia.

From the article:

In structured interviews conducted in villages proximate to a hospital in Nimba County, Liberia, only one in six women reported delivering their last child in a hospital, that is, 83.2% of women reported their last delivery to have been at home. Of women delivering at a regional hospital, 35.5% were by caesarean section and 8% were stillborn. These metrics indicate severe underutilisation of timely, supervised, institutional birthing services among women in north-central Liberia. Participants reported financial and transportation barriers to seeking care, as well as cultural traditions including the practice of delivery under the care of a TM. (Traditional midwife is the term used in Liberia, analogous to the traditional birth attendant in other nations.) Further, more than half of women who delivered their last child in a hospital did do so only after experiencing complications in labour at home.

Read the full article here. (The full text of this article is available at no cost.)