The Role of Maternity Waiting Area in Improving Obstetric Outcomes: A Comparative Cross-sectional Study, Jinka Zonal Hospital, Southern Regional State

Background: Maternity Waiting Areas also called Maternity Waiting Homes are residential facilities, located near a recognized medical facility, where non-laboring pregnant women from remote areas stay awaiting their delivery and be transferred to the medical facility shortly before delivery. Research indicates that 99% of all maternal mortalities occur in the developing countries. Ethiopia is a major contributor to the world-wide death of mothers. Maternity Waiting Areas, an approach designed to improve access of rural mothers to comprehensive emergency obstetric care has been introduced three decades ago in Ethiopia. Methods: Hospital-based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted. Results: Only 16.7% of the total 516 mothers were admitted to the Maternity Waiting Areas of which 90.7% were from rural areas. Almost all mothers from the Maternity Waiting Areas (98.8%) delivered at the hospital with relatively reduced occurrence of the bad obstetric outcomes of interest when compared to the mothers from home. More than 53% of the mothers who reported late to labor ward were mothers from rural areas. Mothers from the Maternity Waiting Areas were 97% less likely to experience prolonged PROM when compared to the home group, AOR and 95% CI: 0.03 (0.01, 0.24). They had also 74% lesser odds of experiencing delay in admission to labor ward when in labor, AOR and 95% CI: 0.25 (0.15, 0.43). The collective bad obstetric outcomes were reduced by 27.5% from 61.2% prevalence in the home group to 33.7% in the Maternity Waiting Areas group, AOR and 95% CI: 0.32 (0.20, 0.53). Conclusion: Mothers from the Maternity Waiting Areas had been protected from the risk of intrauterine infections and thereby from maternal and perinatal complications unlike mothers from home.