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It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa

BACKGROUND: Health professionals are striving to improve respectful care for women, but they fall short in the domains of effective communication, respectful and dignified care and emotional support during labour. This study aimed to determine women’s experiences of childbirth with a view to improvi...

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Autores principales: Oosthuizen, Sarie J., Bergh, Anne-Marie, Pattinson, Robert C., Grimbeek, Jackie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5689145/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29145897
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-017-0411-5
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author Oosthuizen, Sarie J.
Bergh, Anne-Marie
Pattinson, Robert C.
Grimbeek, Jackie
author_facet Oosthuizen, Sarie J.
Bergh, Anne-Marie
Pattinson, Robert C.
Grimbeek, Jackie
author_sort Oosthuizen, Sarie J.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Health professionals are striving to improve respectful care for women, but they fall short in the domains of effective communication, respectful and dignified care and emotional support during labour. This study aimed to determine women’s experiences of childbirth with a view to improving respectful clinical care practices in low-risk, midwife-led obstetric units in the Tshwane District Health District, South Africa. METHODS: A survey covering all midwife-led units in the district was conducted among 653 new mothers. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to mothers returning for a three-days-to-six-weeks postnatal follow-up visit. Mothers were asked about their experiences regarding communication, labour, clinical care and respectful care during confinement. An ANCOVA was performed to identify the socio-demographic variables that significantly predicted disrespectful care. Six items representing the different areas of experience were used in the analysis. RESULTS: Age, language, educational level and length of residence in the district were significantly associated with disrespectful care (p ≤ 0.01). Overall, the following groups of mothers reported more negative care experiences during labour: women between the ages of 17 and 24 years; women with limited formal education; and women from another province or a neighbouring country. Items which attracted fewer positive responses from participants were the following: 46% of mothers had been welcomed by name on arrival; 47% had been asked to give consent to a physical examination; and 39% had been offered food or water during labour. With regard to items related to respectful care, 54% of mothers indicated that all staff members had spoken courteously to them, 48% said they had been treated with a lot of respect, and 55% were completely satisfied with their treatment. CONCLUSION: There is a need to improve respectful care through interventions that are integrated into routine care practices in labour wards. To stop the spiral of abusive obstetric care, the care provided should be culturally sensitive and should address equity for the most vulnerable and underserved groups. All levels of the health care system should employ respectful obstetric care practices, matched with support for midwives and improved clinical governance in maternity facilities. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (dio: 10.1186/s12978-017-0411-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-56891452017-11-24 It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa Oosthuizen, Sarie J. Bergh, Anne-Marie Pattinson, Robert C. Grimbeek, Jackie Reprod Health Research BACKGROUND: Health professionals are striving to improve respectful care for women, but they fall short in the domains of effective communication, respectful and dignified care and emotional support during labour. This study aimed to determine women’s experiences of childbirth with a view to improving respectful clinical care practices in low-risk, midwife-led obstetric units in the Tshwane District Health District, South Africa. METHODS: A survey covering all midwife-led units in the district was conducted among 653 new mothers. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to mothers returning for a three-days-to-six-weeks postnatal follow-up visit. Mothers were asked about their experiences regarding communication, labour, clinical care and respectful care during confinement. An ANCOVA was performed to identify the socio-demographic variables that significantly predicted disrespectful care. Six items representing the different areas of experience were used in the analysis. RESULTS: Age, language, educational level and length of residence in the district were significantly associated with disrespectful care (p ≤ 0.01). Overall, the following groups of mothers reported more negative care experiences during labour: women between the ages of 17 and 24 years; women with limited formal education; and women from another province or a neighbouring country. Items which attracted fewer positive responses from participants were the following: 46% of mothers had been welcomed by name on arrival; 47% had been asked to give consent to a physical examination; and 39% had been offered food or water during labour. With regard to items related to respectful care, 54% of mothers indicated that all staff members had spoken courteously to them, 48% said they had been treated with a lot of respect, and 55% were completely satisfied with their treatment. CONCLUSION: There is a need to improve respectful care through interventions that are integrated into routine care practices in labour wards. To stop the spiral of abusive obstetric care, the care provided should be culturally sensitive and should address equity for the most vulnerable and underserved groups. All levels of the health care system should employ respectful obstetric care practices, matched with support for midwives and improved clinical governance in maternity facilities. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (dio: 10.1186/s12978-017-0411-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC5689145/ /pubmed/29145897 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-017-0411-5 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Oosthuizen, Sarie J.
Bergh, Anne-Marie
Pattinson, Robert C.
Grimbeek, Jackie
It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa
title It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa
title_full It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa
title_fullStr It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa
title_full_unstemmed It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa
title_short It does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, Tshwane, South Africa
title_sort it does matter where you come from: mothers’ experiences of childbirth in midwife obstetric units, tshwane, south africa
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5689145/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29145897
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-017-0411-5
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