IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0182485.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Safe delivery care practices in western Nepal: Does women’s autonomy influence the utilization of skilled care at birth?

Author

Listed:
  • Tulsi Ram Bhandari
  • V Raman Kutty
  • P Sankara Sarma
  • Ganesh Dangal

Abstract

Despite various efforts to increase the utilization of skilled birth attendants (SBA), nearly two-thirds of deliveries take place at home without the assistance of SBAs in Nepal. We hypothesized that the ability of women to take decisions about their own lives—women’s autonomy—plays an important part in birth choices. To know this, we conducted a community-based cross-sectional study for assessing women’s autonomy and utilization of safe delivery care service in Kapilvastu district of Nepal from June to October 2014. We used multivariate modeling to associate socioeconomic factors and women’s autonomy with the utilization of safe delivery care services. Just over one-third of women sought institutional delivery care during the birth of their last child. Out of the total deliveries at health facilities, nearly 58% women visited health facility for self-reported emergency obstructive care. Only 6.2% home deliveries were handled by health workers and 14.7% women used the safe delivery kit for home delivery care. Higher levels of women’s education had a strong positive association (odds ratio = 24.11, CI = 9.43–61.64) with institutional delivery care. Stratified analysis showed that when the husband is educated, women’s education seems to work partly through their autonomy in decision making. Educational status of women emerged as one of the key predictors of the utilization of delivery care services in Kapilvastu district. Economic status of household and husband’s education are other dominant predictors of the utilization of safe delivery care services. Improving the economic and educational status may be the way out for improving the proportion of institutional deliveries. Women’s autonomy may be an important mediating factor in this pathway.

Suggested Citation

  • Tulsi Ram Bhandari & V Raman Kutty & P Sankara Sarma & Ganesh Dangal, 2017. "Safe delivery care practices in western Nepal: Does women’s autonomy influence the utilization of skilled care at birth?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(8), pages 1-10, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0182485
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182485
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182485
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0182485&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0182485?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kruk, M.E. & Prescott, M.R., 2012. "The role of health systems and policies in promoting safe delivery in low-and middle-income countries: A multilevel analysis," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 102(4), pages 645-650.
    2. Ensor, Tim & Clapham, Susan & Prasai, Devi Prasad, 2009. "What drives health policy formulation: Insights from the Nepal maternity incentive scheme?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(2-3), pages 247-253, May.
    3. Jeroen Smits & Roel Steendijk, 2015. "The International Wealth Index (IWI)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 65-85, May.
    4. Powell-Jackson, Timothy & Hanson, Kara, 2012. "Financial incentives for maternal health: Impact of a national programme in Nepal," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 271-284.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Habtamu Tolera & Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher & Helmut Kloos, 2019. "Utilization of decentralized health facilities and factors influencing women’s choice of a delivery site in Gida Ayana Woreda, western Ethiopia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Maryam Vizheh & Frances Rapport & Jeffrey Braithwaite & Yvonne Zurynski, 2023. "The Impact of Women’s Agency on Accessing and Using Maternal Healthcare Services: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-17, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Coffey, Diane, 2014. "Costs and consequences of a cash transfer for hospital births in a rural district of Uttar Pradesh, India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 89-96.
    2. Yannick Markhof & Isabela Franciscon & Nicolò Bird & Pedro Arruda, 2021. "Social assistance programmes in South Asia: an evaluation of socio-economic impacts," Research Report 62, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    3. Bucciol, Alessandro & Burro, Giovanni, 2022. "Is there a happiness premium for working in the public sector? Evidence from Italy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    4. Benjamin M Hunter & Sean Harrison & Anayda Portela & Debra Bick, 2017. "The effects of cash transfers and vouchers on the use and quality of maternity care services: A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-37, March.
    5. Tulasi Malini Maharatha & Sumirtha Gandhi & Umakant Dash, 2021. "Has the Demand and Supply-side Components of Janani Suraksha Yojana Augmented the Uptake of Maternal Health Care Services among Poor Women in India ? : An Application of Hybrid Matching Technique," BASE University Working Papers 08/2021, BASE University, Bengaluru, India.
    6. Lee, Kamwoo & Braithwaite, Jeanine, 2022. "High-resolution poverty maps in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    7. Pinar, Mehmet & Stengos, Thanasis & Topaloglou, Nikolas, 2020. "On the construction of a feasible range of multidimensional poverty under benchmark weight uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 281(2), pages 415-427.
    8. von Haaren, Paula & Klonner, Stefan, 2020. "Maternal cash for better child health? The impacts of India’s IGMSY/PMMVY maternity benefit scheme," Working Papers 0689, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    9. Schrijner, Sandor & Smits, Jeroen, 2018. "Grandparents and Children's stunting in sub-Saharan Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 90-98.
    10. Nandy, Shailen & Daoud, Adel & Gordon, David, 2016. "Examining the changing profile of undernutrition in the context of food price rises and greater inequality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 153-163.
    11. Fredrick Manang & Chikako Yamauchi, 2015. "The impact of access to health facilities on maternal care use and health status: Evidence from longitudinal data from rural Uganda," GRIPS Discussion Papers 15-19, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
    12. Nguyen, Thao Phuong, 2020. "The determinants impact on poverty reduction in Vietnam," OSF Preprints 3f9xc, Center for Open Science.
    13. Sibhatu, Kibrom T. & Arslan, Aslihan & Zucchini, Emanuele, 2022. "The effect of agricultural programs on dietary diversity and food security: Insights from the smallholder productivity promotion program in Zambia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    14. Lambed Tatah & Yves Wasnyo & Matthew Pearce & Tolu Oni & Louise Foley & Ebele Mogo & Charles Obonyo & Jean Claude Mbanya & James Woodcock & Felix Assah, 2022. "Travel Behaviour and Barriers to Active Travel among Adults in Yaoundé, Cameroon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-20, July.
    15. Witter, Sophie & Somanathan, Aparnaa, 2012. "Demand-side financing for sexual and reproductive health services in low and middle-income countries : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6213, The World Bank.
    16. Jet Wildeman & Jeroen Smits & Sandor Schrijner, 2023. "Ethnic Variation in Fertility Preferences in Sub-Saharan Africa," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(4), pages 1-23, August.
    17. Shifa, Muna & Leibbrandt, Murray, 2021. "Spatial Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa," EconStor Preprints 244591, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    18. Lukuyu, June & Shiran, Myriam & Kennedy, Ryan & Urpelainen, Johannes & Taneja, Jay, 2023. "Purchasing power: Examining customer profiles and patterns for decentralized electricity systems in East Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    19. Qanti, Sara Ratna & Peralta, Alexandra & Zeng, Di, 2021. "Social Norms and Perception on Women's Participation in Agricultural Decisions: The Case of West Java, Indonesia," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 314984, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Pham Bao Duong & Pham Tien Thanh & Tihomir Ancev, 2021. "Impacts of off‐farm employment on welfare, food security and poverty: Evidence from rural Vietnam," International Journal of Social Welfare, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 84-96, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0182485. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.