Perspectives of Maternal Mortality Among Women Who Live in Indiana

To explore the perspectives of women in the lay public in Indiana on the topic of maternal mortality.

Qualitative descriptive design.

The state of Indiana.

Women in the lay public (N = 20) who were recruited from Facebook groups aimed at women with children.

We used semistructured phone interviews during which participants described their understanding of maternal mortality and their related experiences. We analyzed the transcribed interviews using content analysis to yield overall themes.

We identified three main themes that described participants' perspectives of maternal mortality: Women Are Not Worried About Mortality Until They Experience Pregnancy Complications, Women Have Limited Information on Maternal Mortality, and Women Often Feel Dismissed During Maternity Care.

Our findings suggest that nurses and other health care providers should increase their efforts to effectively communicate about maternal mortality and the associated risk factors and to follow evidence-based guidelines for respectful maternity care.