This study investigates Tasmanian maternity health providers’ and rural women’s experiences and views of continuity of care in the public health system and the feasibility of this model is explored. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 women who had childbirth experiences in six rural areas in Tasmania in the past five years. In addition 20 multidisciplinary maternity health provid...

Objective: to gain an understanding of how women conceptualise continuity of maternity care. Design: a qualitative study involving in-depth semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. Setting: a range of urban and rural public hospitals in New South Wales, Australia. Participants: 53 women aged 18-44 years (median age 27 years) receiving maternity care in 2011 2012. Findings: responses fr...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to find out what aspects of their parenthood parents revealed, and how they expressed their thoughts concerning maternity care services on an online communication forum. BACKGROUND The 'Information Society' offers a growing variety of health services as part of public primary health care via the internet. Little is known about the contents produced online b...

In many countries rural maternity care is under threat. Consequently rural pregnant women will have to travel further to attend larger maternity units to receive care and deliver their babies. This trend is not dissimilar from the disappearance of other rural services, such as village shops, banks, post offices and bus services. We use a comparative approach to draw an analogy with large-scale ...

BACKGROUND The Australian government has announced a major program of reform with the move to primary maternity care, a program of change that appears to be at odds with current general public perceptions regarding how maternity care is delivered. METHODS A critical discourse analysis of articles published in 'The Age', a newspaper with national distribution, subsequent to the release of the ...

About 50-70% pregnant women have experienced some form of low back pain (LBP). The use of a support belt is a common part of therapy for back pain associated with pregnancy. However, little research exists with regard to the factors that may influence acceptance and comfort in the use of maternity support garments, which may affect compliance with treatment. This wearer trial involves evaluatio...

Effective collaboration between professional groups is increasingly seen as an essential element in good quality and safe health care. This is especially important in the context of maternity care, where most women have straightforward labour and birth experiences, but some require rapid transfer between care providers and settings. This article presents current accounts of collaboration--or la...

At present there is under utilization of maternity service provision in Nigeria, with only a third of childbearing women electing to deliver in healthcare facilities. This is relevant since Nigeria's maternal mortality rate is second highest in the world and is estimated at 1,100 per 100,000 live births. To date, studies have sought cause and effect and have neglected the opinion of the people ...

BACKGROUND Women and their babies are entitled to equal access to high quality maternity care. However, when women fit into two or more categories of vulnerability they can face multiple, compound barriers to accessing and utilising services. Disabled women are up to three times more likely to experience domestic abuse than non-disabled women. Domestic abuse may compromise health service access...

BACKGROUND Although surveys have identified that women are generally highly satisfied with maternity care provision, those aspects of care that women highlight as most important for achieving satisfaction and a satisfactory maternity care experience have not been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate how women understand and experience their maternity care and to report which aspec...