Maternal Health-seeking Behavior and Associated Factors in a Rural Nigerian Community

Objectives: To assess maternal health services and health-seeking behavior in a rural community (Ologbo), located in the South-south zone of Nigeria.

Methods: Structured questionnaire was administered to 225 randomly selected mothers (age 15-49 years), and was analyzed using SPSS. Six focus group discussion sessions were also conducted-four for community women and two for health workers.

Results: Teenagers constituted 13.3% of the respondents. The average number of children per woman ranged from 2.5 for teenagers to 9.0 for women aged 45-49 years. Eighty percent of respondents knew at least one major medical cause of maternal mortality: the most common causes mentioned were hemorrhage (31.8%) and obstructed labor (17.3%). Private maternity center was the most preferred place for childbirth (37.3%), followed by traditional birth attendants (TBAs) (25.5%). Government facility was preferred by only 15.7%: reasons for the low preference included irregularity of staff at work (31.4%), poor quality of services (24.3%), and high costs (19.2%). Among the 81 women that delivered within a 1-year period, only 9.9% received antenatal care, 6.2% received two doses of tetanus toxoid, while 4.9% attended postnatal clinic. Private midwives and TBAs attended 49.4 and 42.0% of deliveries, respectively. Education was found to be significantly associated with choice of place for delivery (p < 0.05), but no association was found with respect to age and marital status. Only 11.4% of mothers were practicing family planning.

Conclusions: Poor health-seeking behavior is a challenge in rural Nigeria, and interventions are needed to achieve improved maternal health status.