Characteristic of Households with Women Using Unskilled Birth Attendants in Urban Slum of Kisumu East District Nyalenda Community Unit

Abstract

Maternal and child mortalities can be reduced if all women deliveries are attended by trained and skilled birth attendants that can provide Emergency obstetric care. Community health strategy has been put in place as an intervention to reduce maternal mortalities. In the urban slum of Kisumu a third (34.7%) mothers still use unskilled attendant. This study set out to investigate characteristic of households with women using unskilled birth attendants in urban slum of Nyalenda, kisumu, Kenya. The study was comparative in design in which all the households with women who used unskilled attendants during their last delivery included in the study as cases, next nearest, neighboring households with women who used skilled attendants in the last delivery, included as controls, at a ratio of 1:1. Therefore, a total of 1033 cases and 1033 controls were analyzed with a total sample of 2066 as valid cases. The study showed age group 35 and above was higher among the mothers using unskilled delivery (14%) as compared to those using skilled attendants (10.3%), while mothers who had secondary and above level of education were less likely to have unskilled birth attendant odds ratio (OR) = 0.420 (95% CI=0.257-0.685) as compared to mothers with primary level of education OR= 0.552 (95% CI=0.470-0.649). Based on the study results, the odds ratio showed minimal difference on the household characteristic with only individual characteristic showing some significant results on, age, education level and ante natal clinic (ANC). The study found that older mothers do not go for skilled attendance, despite the fact that most young mothers go for skilled attendance, it is a concern that the older mothers who should attend skilled delivery tend not to go yet they are a risk factor in terms of delivery and childbirth, and hence they need to use maternity health care services from skilled health personnel.