The authors briefly analyze the situation of maternal health care in Brazil and, based on their findings, they comment that there have been transformations in the health care model for women and families and propose some measures, including recovery of the work of the obstetric nurse or midwife (obstetriz, in Portuguese). They comment that women care tendencies in the delivery process presuppos...

The study investigated individual and household factors associated with non-use of maternal health services in Botswana. Nationally-representative data, drawn from the 1996 Botswana Family Health Survey, were used. A weighted sample of 19,031 women, aged 15-49 years, who had at least one pregnancy history in the five years prior to the survey was considered for analysis. Both simple cross-tabul...

OBJECTIVES The Millennium Development Goals (MIDGs) have put maternal health in the mainstream, but there is a need to go beyond the MDGs to address equity within countries. We argue that MDG focus on maternal health is necessary but not sufficient. This paper uses Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana to examine a set of maternal health indicators stratified a...

Maternal mortality in Nigeria is unacceptably high. Some of the reasons may include poor socioeconomic development, weak health care system, low socioeconomic status of women and socio-cultural barriers to care utilization. A cross sectional study was carried out to assess the use of maternal services in Anambra State. A multi stage sampling technique was used to select 800 nursing mothers from...

BACKGROUND Health extension workers (HEWs) in Ethiopia have a unique position, connecting communities to the health sector. This intermediary position requires strong interpersonal relationships with actors in both the community and health sector, in order to enhance HEW performance. This study aimed to understand how relationships between HEWs, the community and health sector were shaped, in o...

BACKGROUND The benefits of maternal health care to maternal and neonatal health outcomes have been well documented. Antenatal care attendance, institutional delivery and skilled attendance at delivery all help to improve maternal and neonatal health. However, use of maternal health services is still very low in developing countries with high maternal mortality including Ethiopia. This study exa...

BACKGROUND Universal health access will not be achieved unless women are cared for in their own communities and are empowered to take decisions about their own health in a supportive environment. This will only be achieved by community-based demand side interventions for maternal health access. In this review article, we highlight three common strategies to increase demand-side barriers to mate...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Despite the benefits of maternal health services, these services are often underutilized, especially in the developing countries. The aim of the present study is to provide insight regarding factors affecting maternal health services use from the family perspective. METHODS We use data from the fourth National Health Services Survey in Jiangsu province of Eastern Chi...

This research investigated the association between the household status of women and their use of maternal health services in rural Egypt. Face-to-face interviews with a structured questionnaire to 201 married women were carried out in a village, posing questions about their health service utilization and their household socio-economic status. The association between service utilization and oth...

BACKGROUND Use of maternal health services is an effective means for reducing the risk of maternal morbidity and mortality, especially in places where the general health status of women is poor. This study was guided by the following objectives: 1) To determine the relationship between timing of first antenatal care (ANC) visit and type of delivery assistance 2) To establish the determinants of...