the role of mothers-in-law in antenatal care decision-making in nepal a qualitative study婆婆的角色在产前保健决策在尼泊尔一个定性研究.pdfVIP

Simkhada et al. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 2010, 10:34 /1471-2393/10/34 R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E Open Access Research article The role of mothers-in-law in antenatal care decision-making in Nepal: a qualitative study 1 †1 †2 Bibha Simkhada* , Maureen A Porter and Edwin R van Teijlingen Abstract Background: Antenatal care (ANC) has been recognised as a way to improve health outcomes for pregnant women and their babies. However, only 29% of pregnant women receive the recommended four antenatal visits in Nepal but reasons for such low utilisation are poorly understood. As in many countries of South Asia, mothers-in-law play a crucial role in the decisions around accessing health care facilities and providers. This paper aims to explore the mother-in- laws role in (a) her daughter-in-laws ANC uptake; and (b) the decision-making process about using ANC services in Nepal. Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 purposively selected antenatal or postnatal mothers (half users, half non-users of ANC), 10 husbands and 10 mothers-in-law in two different (urban and rural) communities. Results: Our findings suggest that mothers-in-law sometime have a positive influence, for example when encouraging women to seek ANC, but more often it is negative. Like many rural women of their generation, all mothers-in-law in this study were illiterate and most had not used ANC themselves. The main factors leading mothers-in-law not to support/ encourage ANC check ups were expectations regarding pregnant women fulfilling their household duties, perceptions that ANC was not beneficial based largely on their own past experiences, the scarcity of resources under their control and power relations between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law.