Reducing maternal mortality in Nigeria: addressing maternal health services’ perception and experience

Abstract

Despite efforts targeted at addressing maternal deaths across national and sub-national levels, maternal mortality ratio has remained high in Nigeria in the last two decades, with the country currently accounting for about 20% of global maternal deaths. While improving overall quality of healthcare is crucial to addressing the high maternal deaths, some country-specific issues need to be explored. This paper highlights the need to understand and address the perception and experiences of maternal services particularly at point of delivery, as this is imperative towards increasing the utilization of maternal health facilities in a multicultural setting like Nigeria. The focus should not only be on why women do not accept healthcare services, but why health facilities do not provide the services that women will accept. This approach to assessing quality of healthcare is necessary to inform relevant policy and public health response in the country.