Issues in Maternal Health Facilities Utilisation in Sokoto State, Northern Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examined the issues influencing utilisations of maternal health facilities for improving the quality and health of women in Sokoto State, Northern Nigeria. Nigeria has been identified as the world’s second-highest contributor of global maternal deaths with highest cases from the northern region compared to the southern region. A structured questionnaire was administered to a sample of 315 women aged 15-49years from a target population of 89,831 in the study area.Using SPSS version 22 package, descriptive statistics and cross tabulation were used for analysis of data.The findings showed there were a total of 121 antenatal care centres in the study area. Critical Analysis indicatedwomen utilisation of services was generally low with only 31.1% of the respondents for antenatal care services, 29.8% for delivery care service, and 26% for postnatal care services. In conclusion, due to inadequate distribution of maternal health facilities in the study area and lack of permission from husband to obtain health care service by the women, the rate of home delivery was on the high side. Therefore, the study recommended implementation of regional interventions that allowed for equitable distribution of maternal health care facilities across the region and campaign for behavioural change towards modern health care facilities utilisations focussing on males/husbands so as to improve the situation.