Preference for Utilization of Skilled Birth Attendants (SBA) Services by Expectant Mothers in Mombasa County

Abstract

Most obstetric complications could be prevented or managed if women had access to a skilled birth attendant SBAs; doctor, nurse, midwife during childbirth. Globally, almost 80% of live births occurred with the assistance of skilled health personnel in the period 2012-2017 up from 62% in the period 2000-2005. Improvements in the coverage of the proportion of births attended by SBAs and their provision of care may have contributed to declines in maternal mortality between 1990 and 2015.The study adopted a survey research design using semi-structured questionnaire and interview guide to collect data. That was collected from June to September, 2017. Interviews were conducted with 370 eligible expectant women residing in Mombasa County. Data was entered in the Epi Data database. Univariate statistics was explored to determine the frequency and percentage. Analysis was conducted in R (version 3.4.3). All the 370 respondents had at one time visited the health facility to seek the services for pregnancy check-up. Factors like mother’s checking their status and of the unborn (42.2%), check-up/examination and treatment (17.6%) were some of reasons cited by expectant mothers for visiting health facility, while factors such as nearness (76.5%) and availability of essential services were some of reasons why expectant mothers visited a particular health facility. There is need to improve the quality of existing facility-based delivery services and strengthening linkages between the expectant mothers and the health facilities as to increase the deliveries.