Exploring the reasons why women prefer to give birth at home in rural northern Ghana: a qualitative study
- PDF / 584,072 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 81 Downloads / 168 Views
(2020) 20:500
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Exploring the reasons why women prefer to give birth at home in rural northern Ghana: a qualitative study Peter Adatara1* , Johanita Strumpher2 and Esmeralda Ricks2
Abstract Background: Skilled birth care during childbirth is reported in the literature as one critical strategy for reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. Despite the importance of birth care provided by skilled birth attendants, women in rural areas of northern Ghana still give birth utilising the birth services provided by Traditional Birth Attendants. The aim of this study,therefore, was to explore and describe the reasons why a small group of rural women chose homebirth in rural northern Ghana. Methods: A qualitative approach was adopted to explore the reasons why women prefer to deliver at home in rural areas of northern Ghana. Individual interviews were used to obtain a full description of factors and experiences of women associated with home births in rural areas in Ghana. The research population consisted of 10 women who utilised birth care services provided by Traditional Birth Attendants in a rural community of northern Ghana. Data collected from the interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed to identify themes. Results: This study, which was conducted among a small group of women, yielded interesting results on why these women still give birth at home in rural northern Ghana. It was found out that perceived poor quality of care and conduct of skilled birth attendants; the perception that women received better care from Traditional Birth Attendants; financial constraints and lack of access to healthcare facilities in the rural areas by these women accounted for majority of the reasons why women in rural northern Ghana still give birth at home. Conclusion: The study highlighted some barriers experienced by participants to the utilisation of birth care services provided by skilled birth attendants in rural northern Ghana. Management of healthcare facilities should facilitate the implementation of supportive supervision in the maternity units to improve the quality of care and attitude delivered by skilled birth attendants in maternity care in rural communities. Keywords: Reasons, Women preference, Home birth, Rural northern, Ghana
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 1 Department of Nursing, University of Health and Allied Sciences, PMB, 31 Ho, Ghana Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material.
Data Loading...
