Background
Maternity Waiting Homes (MWHs) is an intervention designed to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality. Ethiopia has introduced the intervention before three decades however; its utilization is very low. Therefore, this study is aimed to assess MWH utilization and associated factors among women who gave birth in the last 12 months in Digelu and Tijo district Arsi Zone Oromia Region, Ethiopia.
Methods
Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in April 2019 on 530 randomly selected women. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and logistics regressions were used to analyze the results. Adjusted odds ratio and 95% confidence interval were respectively calculated to measure strength of association and its statistical significance. The confidence interval was used to declare statistical significance in the final model.
Results
One hundred twenty-five (23.6%) of the respondents used maternity waiting home. Traveling time less than and equals to 60 minutes from a nearby health facility (AOR=0.16, 95% CI: 0.09, 0.27), women’s decision power (AOR=1.81, 95% CI: 1.10, 2.96), not utilizing antenatal care (AOR=0.6, 95% CI: 0.37, 0.97) and delivering more than three children (AOR=0.56, 95% CI: 0.34, 0.90) were independently associated with utilizing the maternity waiting home.
Conclusions
Even though the MWH was designed to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality, less than a quarter (23.6%) of women delivered in the last 12 months before the study in the Digelu and Tijo District had utilized the services. Increasing availability of the service, promoting antenatal care utilization, empowering women and evolving policy makers are recommended to enhance the current low utilization of the MWH.
Author(s): Derese Teshome, Muluemebet Abera, and Mamo Nigatu