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This paper aims to describe a trend in coverage of maternal care services, and provides a detailed analysis of socio-economic correlations to the existing inequities. The paper uses data from the Vietnam Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2000, 2006, 2011, and 2014. In the MICS, there were 9,117 women in 2000, 9,473 women in 2006, 11,614 women in 2011, and 9,827 women in 2014 participated in. We found the coverage of antenatal care increase from 68.6% in 2000 to 95.9% in 2014. Similarly, the percentages of women who gave birth with the assistance of skilled staff increased during the studied period ( from 69.9% in 2000, 87.7% to 94.5% in 2014). However, improvements in antenatal care and skilled birth attendance in Vietnam have been uneven across different segments of the population. In all the four surveys, the proportions of women who received ANC by a skilled staff and percentages of women who gave birth with the assistance of a skilled health personnel were much higher among those with higher education, belonged to Kinh majority tribe, had better economic status, and lived in an urban area. The degrees of inequity in both antenatal and delivery care in Vietnam are likely to increase over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the perceptions and experiences of childbirth among a group of wealthier women in Dhaka through in-depth interviews. We find that a number of factors including preference for Caesarean Section (CS), socio-economic position, family structure, and perceptions of modern childbirth contributed to the women's overuse of medical childbirth services. Furthermore, women's capacity to purchase modern maternal health care in the private sector did not necessarily ensure high quality care in a health system which approaches maternal healthcare as a profit-making enterprise rather than as an essential human right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women in low- and middle-income countries are known to make changes to their diets during pregnancy. We set out to explore the subject of traditional pregnancy diets with a view to finding out if migrant women follow these practices, and if such information might help explain differences in birth outcomes between migrant women and destination-country-born women. This review found that traditional pregnancy diets vary from region to region, that migrant women may follow some of these practices, and that there is a dearth of studies looking into the impact of pregnancy diets on birth outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We measured levels of women's health knowledge and their association with the reporting of maternal health complications and related health care use. We found that women with higher levels of health knowledge reported more pregnancy and postnatal complications, and used more maternal health care services. Education has a positive impact on health, but education alone is not enough to ensure recognizing and reporting of health complications and increasing the demand for maternal health care services. We conclude that the provision of health education for women will help them to identify maternal health complications and improve their reporting and related health care use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, millions of women die during pregnancy and childbirth due to preventable causes. In Nepal, although significant improvements have been made in the availability of routine antenatal care (ANC), the need for effective initiatives still persists. Using the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey data, we examine the relationship between ecological and socioeconomic variations on the effect of ANC services between three distinct ecological zones in Nepal. We make a case for the consideration of socioecological niches in designing effective policies and programs to achieve positive maternal health outcomes. Most importantly, we demonstrate how sociocultural perspective can be one alternative for examining the cultural and contextual effects on women's health, contributing to the methodological literature on women's health. Since geography and culture are components of human ecology and form the larger socioecological system, we highlight the importance of these contextual effects on women's health in general, and the conditions under which women from diverse backgrounds may experience similar health issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we examine the prevalence and factors associated with the utilization of safe motherhood practices among slum-dwelling women of Bangladesh using the 2006 Bangladesh Urban Health Survey data. Overall, the utilization of maternal health care services was very low. The binary logistic regression analyses yielded significantly increased skilled services utilization for women with higher education levels, nonworking women, non-Muslims, women undergoing their first pregnancy, women who had lived in the slum longer, and amongst the rich. Awareness should be created through information, education, and communication programs, and services should be provided with minimum cost to promote safe motherhood practices among the urban poor in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the 2002 Eritrea and 2005 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), this study was carried out to investigate the link between women's autonomy and maternal health care utilization in relation to socioeconomic factors. Although some dimensions of women's autonomy are significantly linked to an increased likelihood of receiving health care, they do not emerge to be mediators of the link between socioeconomic factors and use of health services for antenatal care and delivery care. In order to derive a complete understanding of the determinants of maternal health care utilization, both women's autonomy and socioeconomic indicators should be analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]