Factors Associated with Supervised and Non-supervised Maternal Deliveries among Women of Reproductive Age Attending Postnatal Clinics at Obuasi East Municipality, Ghana

Background: Pregnancy and childbirth are vital events in the life of a woman so there is the need to pay special attention to mothers from the time of conception to labor and delivery to postnatal care. This study sought to assess the supervised and non-supervised maternal deliveries among postnatal mothers of the reproductive age attending postnatal clinics at Obuasi East Municipality in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

Methods: A facility-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Obuasi East Municipality. A structured questionnaire was used for 352 postnatal mothers accessing health care at the various health facilities used for the study. Nine (9) health facilities in the municipality were used for the study. Descriptive, binary, and multivariate logistics regression analyses were used to estimate the association between the dependent and independent variables. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 23. Statistical significance for all testing was set at 0.05 (95% CI). Descriptive statistics was used to determine the proportion of supervised and unsupervised delivery.

Results: The result revealed that majority of the respondents 190 (54.0%) were within the age range 26-30 while 61 (17.3%) were aged 18-25 years. The findings from the survey revealed that those who were within the age range of 26-30 were 1.8 times more likely to make the choice to deliver under supervision at a health center as compared to those who were within 18-25 years of age which was statistically significant (OR =1.8; 95% CI: 0.3– 1.9; P-value= 0.000). Among the nine variables assessed, only items of confinement influenced supervised and unsupervised delivery with p-value=0.00.

Conclusion/Recommendations: The study concludes that if pregnant women are given in-depth information regarding supervised delivery and the dangers of unsupervised delivery they will not only be able to notice them but also actions to take to deal with these emergencies by attending health facilities. It is recommended that the Ministry of Health/GHS should sensitize health workers on positive attitudes towards their clients to increase ANC attendants.