Birth companionship: Making childbirth safer

What you need to know:

The goal is to improve women’s experience giving birth at health facilities, in the hopes that more women will decide to deliver in a facility, where they can benefit from skilled attendance and emergency care in case of a complication.

While Tanzania has made considerable progress in reducing maternal and infant mortality, the rates are still too high, and skilled health care at birth is essential to reducing those rates. The 2015-16 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey showed that only 63 per cent of births in Tanzania—and 46 per cent in Kigoma—took place in health facilities. It is thought that one factor contributing to low utilization of facilities for childbirth may be that, in the government facilities that are the primary source of care in Kigoma, women are not allowed to bring a person of their choice with them into the labor/delivery room. These women have to navigate the health system alone at a very vulnerable moment of their lives. Assistance from a companion can help them to have better experience in the labour ward, and the companions can help make the providers’ jobs easier by giving the delivering woman non-medical assistance. This is one reason the introduction of birth companionship is more and more considered important for improving women’s satisfaction with facility-based childbirth and increasing the rate of facility delivery.

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Birth companionship: Making childbirth safer

What you need to know:

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