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Background: A maternal mortality ratio is a sensitive indicator when comparing the overall maternal health between countries and its very high figure indicates the failure of maternal healthcare efforts. Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam-CLMV countries are the low-income countries of the South-East Asia region where their maternal mortality ratios are disproportionately high. This systematic review aimed to summarize all possible factors influencing maternal mortality in CLMV countries. Methods: This systematic review applied "The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Checklist (2020)", Three key phrases: "Maternal Mortality and Health Outcome", "Maternal Healthcare Interventions" and "CLMV Countries" were used for the literature search. 75 full-text papers were systematically selected from three databases (PubMed, Google Scholar and Hinari). Two stages of data analysis were descriptive analysis of the general information of the included papers and qualitative analysis of key findings. Results: Poor family income, illiteracy, low education levels, living in poor households, and agricultural and unskilled manual job types of mothers contributed to insufficient antenatal care. Maternal factors like non-marital status and sex-associated work were highly associated with induced abortions while being rural women, ethnic minorities, poor maternal knowledge and attitudes, certain social and cultural beliefs and husbands' influences directly contributed to the limitations of maternal healthcare services. Maternal factors that made more contributions to poor maternal healthcare outcomes included lower quintiles of wealth index, maternal smoking and drinking behaviours, early and elderly age at marriage, over 35 years pregnancies, unfavourable birth history, gender-based violence experiences, multigravida and higher parity. Higher unmet needs and lower demands for maternal healthcare services occurred among women living far from healthcare facilities. Regarding the maternal healthcare workforce, the quality and number of healthcare providers, the development of healthcare infrastructures and human resource management policy appeared to be arguable. Concerning maternal healthcare service use, the provisions of mobile and outreach maternal healthcare services were inconvenient and limited. Conclusion: Low utilization rates were due to several supply-side constraints. The results will advance knowledge about maternal healthcare and mortality and provide a valuable summary to policymakers for developing policies and strategies promoting high-quality maternal healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom's Abortion Act 1967 has attracted substantial controversy, which has centred not only on the regulation of abortion itself, but also on the extent to which conscientious objection should be permitted. The aim of this study was to examine a range of healthcare professionals' views on conscientious objection and identify the appropriate parameters of conscientious objection to abortion. Gadamer's hermeneutic was utilised to frame this study. We conducted semi-structured interviews in two UK locations with 18 pharmacists, 17 midwives, 12 nurses and nine doctors, encompassing a mix of conscientious objectors and non-objectors to abortion. A multi-faceted in-depth data analysis led to the development of a hermeneutic of "respecting self and others". Four major themes of "doing the job", "entrusting to others", "acknowledging institutional power" and "being selective" and 18 subthemes contributed to this overarching theme. The complexity of the responses indicates that there is little consistency within and between each profession. They show that participants who were conscientious objectors were accepted by their colleagues and accommodated without detriment to the service, and that in larger hospitals, such as those where our work was carried out, it is possible to be employed in the service areas that include abortion while still being a conscientious objector. Finally, our results indicate that, by respecting of self and others, each profession should be able to accommodate conscience-based objections where individual practitioners seek to exercise them. Conscientious objectors as well as non-objectors have something to contribute to the ongoing development of the maternity and gynaecological services as abortion is only a small part of the work of these services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]