Home Delivery and Associated Factors among Reproductive Age Women in Shashemene Town, Ethiopia

Introduction: Institutional delivery service utilization is essential to improve maternal and child health. According to Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey 2005 and 2011, the proportion of women utilizing institutional delivery service in the country is very low. In Oromia Region about 60.5% of the eligible mothers didn’t received Antenatal Care service and 91.5% of the mothers gave birth at home in the region. The aim of the study was to assess the home delivery and associated factors among reproductive age group women in Shashemene town, Ethiopia. Patients and methods: Community based cross sectional study design was utilized. The study was conducted from March 01 to March 31st. House to house census was conducted to identify the eligible mothers and a sampling frame was developed. Using simple random sampling technique 285 mothers were selected. Descriptive statistics was employed to describe each variables and logistic regression to determine the association between predictor variables and outcome variable. With 95% confidence interval p value less than 0.05 was considered as a significant variables. Results: 224 (81%) of the respondents gave birth in the health facility of which 36 (16.1%) of them were at health center, 165 (73.7%) at hospital and the remaining 23 (10.2%) at health post. From those mothers who gave birth at home, 53 (19%), 26 (49.1%) was delivered by their mothers, 20 (37.7%) by neighbors and, 7 (13.2%) was health extension workers. The main reason mentioned for home delivery by 40 (75.5%) was no labor pain and 3 (5.7%) mentioned lack of receiving adequate delivery services from health professionals and 8 (15.1%) was due to lack of knowledge about the importance to delivering in health institution. Antenatal care, educational status, husband educational status, marital status and receiving health education on maternal health showed an association with place of delivery. Conclusion: The study showed that home delivery was lower in women who were educated, utilized antenatal care, and received health education on maternal health. Therefore, improving maternal educational status, providing adequate information about maternal health through media and encourage to take antenatal care is essential to reduce the prevalence of home delivery.