Pregnant Mothers Preference Of Health Professional’s Gender For Birth Attendant And Its Associated Factors Among Women Who Visit For Antenatal Care At Selected Public Health Institutions In Debre Birhan, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background -Globally Maternal mortality is unacceptably high About 287 000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2020.Almost 95% of all maternal death occurred in low and lower middle-income countries in 2020. Low maternal health care service utilization has been considered one of the factors that resulted in the slow progression maternal mortality reduction on programs. Mother’s gender preference for obstetrics care is an important issue to promote maternal health care service utilization. Objective - To asses pregnant mothers’ preference of health professional’s gender for birth attendant and its associated factors among women who visit for ANC at selected public health institutions in Debre Birhan, Ethiopia, 2024. Methods: -An Institutional based cross sectional study design was conducted among 396 pregnant mothers attending ANC at selected public health institutions in Debre Birhan town who were selected by simple random sampling followed by systematic random sampling method to select study participants from July 8 August 8 2024. Data was collected by interviewer administered structured questionnaire using Kobo collect application software .The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 25. To identify the existence of association between dependent variable and independent variables, bivariate logistic regression at 95% CI and p value<=0.05 was used. Results: Among mothers attending antenatal care 188 (47.5) %) with CI (42.5%, 52.5%) of them have preference of gender for birth attendant. Mothers who have no formal education were 5.5 times more likely having preference of gender for birth attendant, AOR 5.503(1.806.16.767). Mothers who ware lived in rural area were 2.72 times more likely having preference AOR 2.728(1.049,7.093). Mothers who were delivered previously by SVD were 14.4 times more likely having preference. Mothers who were delivered by assisted delivery were 2.99 times more likely having preference. Mothers who were gave birth before were 5.594 times more likely having preference.AOR 5.594(1.990, 15.724) Conclusion: high proportion of mothers have preference of gender for birth attendant,mothers have strong inclination to gender preference are those who have no formal education, who delivered spontaneous vaginal delivery previously, nuliparous and those who live in rural area.