Improving maternal health is a global priority, particularly in high HIV-endemic, resource-limited settings. Failure to use health care facilities due to poor access is one of the main causes of maternal deaths in South Africa. "Point-of-care" (POC) diagnostics are an innovative healthcare approach to improve healthcare access and health outcomes in remote and resource-limited settings. In this...

While research has assessed the impact of health insurance on health care utilization, few studies have focused on the effects of health insurance on use of maternal health care. Analyzing nationally representative data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), this study estimates the impact of health insurance status on the use of maternal health services in three countries with relative...

Background Globally, male involvement in maternal health care services remains a challenge to effective maternal health care accessibility and utilization. Objective This study assessed male involvement in maternal health care services and associated factors in Anomabo in the Central Region of Ghana. Methods Random sampling procedures were employed in selecting 100 adult male respondents wh...

Background & aim: Maternal satisfaction of health services is an inherent element of healthcare policies, and quality of midwifery care essentially influences this parameter. This study aimed to evaluate maternal satisfaction of postpartum care and its association with midwifery care at the urban health centers of Mashhad, Iran in 2012. Methods:This descriptive, cross sectional study was conduc...

BACKGROUND Achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of improving maternal health has become a focus in recent times for the majority of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana's maternal mortality is still high indicating that there are challenges in the provision of quality maternal health care at the facility level. This study examined the implementation challenges of maternal health ca...

BACKGROUND A human rights approach to maternal health is considered as a useful framework in international efforts to reduce maternal mortality. Although fundamental human rights principles are incorporated into legal and medical frameworks, human rights have to be translated into measurable actions and outcomes. So far, their substantive applications remain unclear. The aim of this study is to...

BACKGROUND In Nigeria, women too often suffer the consequences of serious obstetric complications that may lead to death. Delay in seeking care (phase I delay) is a recognized contributor to adverse pregnancy outcomes. This qualitative study aimed to describe the health care seeking practices in pregnancy, as well as the socio-cultural factors that influence these actions. METHODS The study w...

BACKGROUND Cultural competency is now a core requirement for maternal health providers working in multicultural society. However, it has not yet received due attention in Ethiopia. This study aimed to determine the level of cultural competence and its associated factors among maternal health care providers in Bahir Dar City Administration, Northwest Ethiopia. METHODS Institution based cross-s...

Introduction According to the estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), the reproductive ill health accounts for 33% of the total disease burden in women as compared to 12.3% for men. Despite this significant figure, in many South Asian countries the magnitude of reproductive morbidity has not been adequately defined. Maternal health event provides enough time to take requisite precauti...

BACKGROUND After more than two decades of the Safe Motherhood Initiative and Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing maternal mortality, women continue to die in childbirth at unacceptably high rates in Pakistan. While an extensive literature describes various programmatic strategies, it neglects the rigorous analysis of the reasons these strategies have been unsuccessful, especially for...