INTRODUCTION Primary maternity care services are globally provided according to various organisational models. Two models are common in Finland: a maternity health clinic and an integrated maternity and child health clinic. The aim of this study was to clarify whether there is a relation between the organisational model of the maternity health clinics and the utilisation of maternity care servi...

Inadequate access to maternity care services is increasingly a problem in Canada owing to health human resource shortages among obstetricians, family doctors, midwives, and nurses who participate in maternity care teams.1 The issue is particularly troublesome for pregnant women residing in rural and remote areas who often have to travel to receive integrated and safe maternity care.2 Considerin...

OBJECTIVE To explore the impact of HIV/AIDS on maternity care providers in labor and delivery in a high HIV-prevalence setting in sub-Saharan Africa. DESIGN Qualitative one-on-one in-depth interviews with maternity care providers. SETTING Four health facilities providing labor and delivery services (2 public hospitals, a public health center, and a small private maternity hospital) in Kisum...

BACKGROUND A major change in the organisation of maternity care in the Netherlands is under consideration, going from an echelon system where midwives provide primary care in the community and refer to obstetricians for secondary and tertiary care, to a more integrated maternity care system involving midwives and obstetricians at all care levels. Student midwives are the future maternity care p...

OBJECTIVE To identify the factors influencing women's choice of maternity care providers in Canada. METHOD Using the Maternity Experience Survey and a multinomial logit model, this paper examined the influence of various socio-economic and demographic factors on the mix of maternity care providers, while controlling for maternal risk profiles. Additionally, provinces were interacted with mate...

BACKGROUND To expand access to safe deliveries, some developing countries have initiated demand-side financing schemes promoting institutional delivery. In the context of conditional cash incentive scheme and free maternity care in public health facilities in India, studies have highlighted high out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) of Indian families for delivery and maternity care. In this context...

A concrete and useful way to create an action plan for improving the quality of maternity care in the United States is to start with a view of the desired result, a common definition and a shared vision for a high-quality, high-value maternity care system. In this paper, we present a long-term vision for the future of maternity care in the United States. We present overarching values and princi...

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