Intrapartum respectful maternity care practices and its barriers in Eastern India

BACKGROUND: Respectful maternal care (RMC) is increasingly recognized globally as critical to improving the quality of maternity care as women deserve respectful and dignified care. Numerous women face disrespectful maternal care during labor and delivery, especially in low- and middle-income countries, which dissuades them from seeking institutional care. Women, the consumers of care, are better positioned to report on the level of respectful care they receive. Health care workers’ perspectives on barriers to delivering respective maternity care are seldom explored. Thus, this study aims to assess the levels of respectful maternity care and its barriers. METHODS: This cross-sectional study assesses the level of RMC and its barriers in the labor room of tertiary care hospital in Odisha among 246 women selected by consecutive sampling technique by a questionnaire. RESULTS: More than one-third of women reported good RMC. Although women rated high in domains of environment, resources, dignified care, and non-discrimination, non-consented care and non-confidential care were poorly rated. Barriers that adversely affect the delivery of RMC perceived by health care workers were lack of resources, staffing, uncooperative mother, communication issues, privacy issues, lack of policies, workload, and language problems. There was a significant association of RMC with age, education, occupation, and income. In contrast, residence, marital status, number of children, antenatal visit, type of institute of antenatal care, mode of delivery, and gender of health care provider were not associated with RMC. CONCLUSION: Given the above findings, we recommend vigorous efforts to improve the institutional policies, resources, training, and supervision of health care professionals on women’s rights during childbirth to strengthen the quality of care for positive birth experiences.