Giving birth in maternity hospitals in benin: Testimonies of women

In Benin, a Francophone country in West Africa, maternity mortality has bee n estimated at between 473 and 990 deaths per 100,000 live births. Yet 92 p er cent of women gave birth in either a public or private health centre, an d almost all of them received antenatal core. This paper reports on on expl oratory, qualitative study in 1995, among 19 women aged 20-40 who had recen tly given birth in a referral hospital, of their experiences of antenatal a nd emergency obstetric core, as port of a larger study on measuring the pre valence of severe maternal morbidity in the community. Thirteen of the wome n hod hod obstetric complications and 11 hod hod a caesarean section. Pregn ancy was described as a period of great vulnerability, and feelings of inse curity and fear of death were omnipresent in the women's accounts. Their pr imary motivation for seeking antenatal core was the appearance of symptoms or events they perceived as abnormal. Although a minority were lucky enough to hove a kind midwife, many complained about not being able to ask questi ons or get any explanations, being mistreated and humiliated by health pers onnel and described the anguish they felt in the face of medical procedures they did not understand, especially caesarean section, which they were tol d were necessary to save their lives. Access to emergency obstetric care is a priority in the bottle against maternal mortality, but it cannot be at t he expense of improvements in the quality of the interaction between women and health personnel. The inclusion of women's voices in the objectives of safe motherhood programmes is necessary to better serve women's needs.