Mozambican midwives' views on barriers to quality perinatal care

Our purpose in this study was to explore the midwives' perception of factors obstructing or facilitating their ability to provide quality perinatal care at a central labor ward in Maputo. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 16 midwives and were analyzed according to grounded theory technique. Barriers to provision of quality perinatal care were identified as follows: (i) the unsupportive environment, (ii) nonempowering and limited interaction with women in labor, (iii) a sense of professional inadequacy and inferiority, and (iv) nonappliance of best caring practices. A model based on the midwives' reflections on barriers to quality perinatal care and responses to these were developed. Actions aimed at overcoming the barriers were improvising and identifying areas in need of change. Identified evading actions were holding others accountable and yielding to dysfunction and structural control. In order to improve perinatal care, the midwives need to see themselves as change agents and not as victims of external and internal causal relationships over which they have no influence. It is moreover essential that the midwives chose actions aiming at overcoming barriers to quality perinatal care instead of choosing evading actions, which might jeopardize the health of the unborn and newborn infant. We suggest that local as well as national education programs need to correspond with existing reality, even if they provide knowledge that surpasses the present possibilities in practice. Quality of intrapartum and the immediate newborn care requires a supportive environment, however, which in the context of this study presented such serious obstacles that they need to be addressed on the national level. Structural and administrative changes are difficult to target as these depend on national organization of maternal health care (MHC) services and national health expenditures.