BackgroundIn countries, such as Mozambique, where maternal mortality remains high, the greatest contribution of mortality comes from the poor and vulnerable communities, who frequently reside in remote and rural areas with limited access to health care services. This study aimed to understand women’s health care seeking practices during pregnancy, taking into account the underlying social, cultural and structural barriers to accessing timely appropriate care in Maputo and Gaza Provinces, southern Mozambique.MethodsThis ethnographic study collected data through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with women of reproductive age, including pregnant women, as well as household-level decision makers (partners, mothers and mothers-in-law), traditional healers, matrons, and primary health care providers. Data was analysed thematically using NVivo 10.ResultsAntenatal care was sought at the heath facility for the purpose of opening the antenatal record. Women without antenatal cards feared mistreatment during labour. Antenatal care was also sought to resolve discomforts, such as headaches, flu-like symptoms, body pain and backache. However, partners and husbands considered lower abdominal pain as the only symptom requiring care and discouraged women from revealing their pregnancy early in gestation. Health care providers for pregnant women often included those at the health facility, matrons, elders, traditional birth attendants, and community health workers. Although seeking care from traditional healers was discouraged during the antenatal period, they did provide services during pregnancy and after delivery. Besides household-level decision-makers, matrons, community health workers, and neighbours were key actors in the referral of pregnant women. The decision-making process may be delayed and particularly complex if an emergency occurs in their absence. Limited access to transport and money makes the decision-making process to seek care at the health facility even more complex.ConclusionsWomen do seek antenatal care at health facilities, despite the presence of other health care providers in the community. There are important factors that prevent timely care-seeking for obstetric emergencies and delivery. Unfamiliarity with warning signs, especially among partners, discouragement from revealing pregnancy early in gestation, complex and untimely decision-making processes, fear of mistreatment by health-care providers, lack of transport and financial constraints were the most commonly cited barriers. Women of reproductive age would benefit from community saving schemes for transport and medication, which in turn would improve their birth preparedness and emergency readiness; in addition, pregnancy follow-up should include key family members, and community-based health care providers should encourage prompt referrals to health facilities, when appropriate.Trial registrationNCT01911494Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12978-016-0141-0) contains supplementary mate...

BackgroundGeographic proximity to health facilities is a known determinant of access to maternal care. Methods of quantifying geographical access to care have largely ignored the impact of precipitation and flooding. Further, travel has largely been imagined as unimodal where one transport mode is used for entire journeys to seek care. This study proposes a new approach for modeling potential spatio-temporal access by evaluating the impact of precipitation and floods on access to maternal health services using multiple transport modes, in southern Mozambique.MethodsA facility assessment was used to classify 56 health centres. GPS coordinates of the health facilities were acquired from the Ministry of Health while roads were digitized and classified from high-resolution satellite images. Data on the geographic distribution of populations of women of reproductive age, pregnancies and births within the preceding 12 months, and transport options available to pregnant women were collected from a household census. Daily precipitation and flood data were used to model the impact of severe weather on access for a 17-month timeline. Travel times to the nearest health facilities were calculated using the closest facility tool in ArcGIS software.ResultsForty-six and 87 percent of pregnant women lived within a 1-h of the nearest primary care centre using walking or public transport modes respectively. The populations within these catchments dropped by 9 and 5% respectively at the peak of the wet season. For journeys that would have commenced with walking to primary facilities, 64% of women lived within 2 h of life-saving care, while for those that began journeys with public transport, the same 2-hour catchment would have contained 95% of the women population. The population of women within two hours of life-saving care dropped by 9% for secondary facilities and 18% for tertiary facilities during the wet season.ConclusionsSeasonal variation in access to maternal care should not be imagined through a dichotomous and static lens of wet and dry seasons, as access continually fluctuates in both. This new approach for modelling spatio-temporal access allows for the GIS output to be utilized not only for health services planning, but also to aid near real time community-level delivery of maternal health services.

BackgroundGeographic information systems (GIS) are increasingly recognized tools in maternal health.ObjectivesTo evaluate the use of GIS in maternal health and to identify knowledge gaps and opportunities.Search strategyKeywords broadly related to maternal health and GIS were used to search for academic articles and gray literature.Selection criteriaReviewed articles focused on maternal health, with GIS used as part of the methods.Data collection and analysisPeer reviewed articles (n = 40) and gray literature sources (n = 30) were reviewed.Main resultsTwo main themes emerged: modeling access to maternal services and identifying risks associated with maternal outcomes. Knowledge gaps included a need to rethink spatial access to maternal care in low- and middle-income settings, and a need for more explicit use of GIS to account for the geographical variation in the effect of risk factors on adverse maternal outcomes. Limited evidence existed to suggest that use of GIS had influenced maternal health policy. Instead, application of GIS to maternal health was largely influenced by policy priorities in global maternal health.ConclusionsInvestigation of the role of GIS in contributing to future policy directions is warranted, particularly for elucidating determinants of global maternal health.