Reasons for Home Delivery among Mothers in Vadodara, Gujarat

India accounts for more than one fifth of all maternal deaths from causes related to pregnancy and child birth worldwide. Information about reasons for delivering at home is important for health planning to design appropriate maternity services. The present study aimed to find out various reasons for home delivery among mothers in Gujarat.

A community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted in rural and urban areas of Vadodara district during April 2017 to July 2017. Mothers delivered at home were interviewed by using semistructured questionnaires through house-to-house visits. Self-reported reasons for home deliveries by mothers were found out. The study findings were presented using descriptive statistics, and association was found with Chi-square test. P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The common reasons cited for home deliveries include "all happened suddenly" (50.9%), "delay in transportation" (13.1%), and "no escorts available" (11.6%). The rest of other reasons contributed to 24.4% of home deliveries. On comparison of reasons for home deliveries between urban and rural areas, "all happened suddenly" was found more in urban (66.7%) than in rural (38.4%) areas (P = 0.0002). Other factors contributing to home delivery included "no escorts available," seen only among rural mothers (20.5%, P = 0.02).

This study highlighted important reasons for home deliveries such as "all happened suddenly," "delay in transportation," "no escorts available." So, it is recommended that appropriate maternity services should be designed and emergency ambulance services should be strengthened.