AUTHOR=Dektar Benbella , Beckford Anita Normans , Kemba Jonny , Crayson Belinda 

TITLE=Mothers’ experiences and perceptions about care provided during home deliveries in Alwa sub county, Kaberamaido district, Uganda– a qualitative study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1180945

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2023.1180945

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=In Uganda 27% of deliveries take place outside a health facility. The existing gaps in quality of maternal and newborn health care must be addressed for Uganda to attain its health targets and consequently its economic targets. Some of the gaps include but are not limited to; illequipped healthcare facilities in rural settings, inadequate client/customer care skills by healthcare providers, and health worker absenteeism especially in the night hours.In Kaberamaido District, only 38.3% of the deliveries in Alwa sub-county took place at a health facility. Despite the district local government and stakeholder efforts to promote health facilitybased deliveries, sadly, a very low proportion of women use the health facilities for delivery.We sought to explore mothers' experiences and perceptions about care provided during home deliveries in Alwa sub-county, Kaberamaido district.The study adopted a cross-sectional descriptive qualitative design. We purposively included 115 mothers who delivered outside the health facility and consented to participate and those who lost their babies within the last 24 months preceding the study. Other participants included in the study were village health team (VHT), traditional birth attendants (TBA) and elderly women. The main instruments used to collect data were focus group discussion (FGD) and indepth interview (IDI) guides. All voice recordings from FGDs and interviews were transcribed and translated from the local language (Kumam) into English. Thematic content analysis was used to synthesize data by applying codes to segments of the transcripts upon which major domains were derived. Key findings were synthesized and quotes were carefully selected based on their relevance and representativeness to the analysis and study objective.Our findings indicated general satisfaction with the care provided during and after home delivery by TBAs as expressed by mothers. Motivation to seek services from TBAs was attributable to their vast experience spanning decades with history of safe delivery. Few mothers expressed discontent with TBA services citing abuse and rudeness.Our study revealed a common view that TBAs were skilled and effectively managed deliveries and cared for mothers satisfactorily during and after home deliveries.