BACKGROUND This paper summarizes a new report presenting the best available research about the impact of the liability environment on maternity care, and policy options for improving this environment. Improved understanding of these matters can help to transcend polarized discourse and guide policy intervention. METHODS We used a best available evidence approach and drew on more recent empiri...

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 Despite national policies to promote user choice for health services in many European countries, current trends in maternity unit closures create a context in which user choice may be reduced, not expanded. Little attention has been paid to the potential impact of closures on pregnant women's choice of maternity unit. We study here how pregnant women's choices interact with the dista...

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...

OBJECTIVE To describe maternity services available to Australian women and, in particular, the location, classification of services and support services available. DESIGN A descriptive study was conducted using an online survey that was emailed to eligible hospitals. Inclusion criteria for the study included public and private maternity units with greater than 50 births per year. In total, 27...

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...

OBJECTIVES To describe the profile of women with children aged under 4 months living in the Brazilian state capitals and in the Federal District according to their working status and to analyze the influence of maternity leave on exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) among working women. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study with data extracted from the II National Maternal Breastfeeding Prevalenc...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES High maternity-related health care spending is often cited as an important barrier in utilizing quality health care during pregnancy and childbirth. This study has two objectives: (i) to measure the levels of expenditure on total maternity care in disaggregated components such as ANCs, PNCs, and Natal care expenditure; (ii) to quantify the extent of catastrophic matern...

BACKGROUND The number of maternity units has declined in France, raising concerns about the possible impact of increasing travel distances on perinatal health outcomes. We investigated impact of distance to closest maternity unit on perinatal mortality. METHODS Data from the French National Vital Statistics Registry were used to construct foetal and neonatal mortality rates over 2001-08 by di...