Abstract
Background
Australian mothers consistently rate postnatal care as the poorest aspect of their
maternity care, and researchers and policymakers have widely acknowledged the need
for improvement in how postnatal care is provided.
Aim
To identify and analyse mothers’ comments about postnatal care in their free text
responses to an open ended question in the Having a Baby in Queensland Survey, 2010,
and reflect on their implications for midwifery practice and maternity service policies.
Methods
The survey assessed mothers’ experiences of maternity care four months after birth.
We analysed free-text data from an open-ended question inviting respondents to write
‘anything else you would like to tell us’. Of the final survey sample (N = 7193), 60% (N = 4310) provided comments, 26% (N = 1100) of which pertained to postnatal care. Analysis included the coding and enumeration
of issues to identify the most common problems commented on by mothers. Comments were
categorised according to whether they related to in-hospital or post-discharge care,
and whether they were reported by women birthing in public or private birthing facilities.
Results
The analysis revealed important differences in maternal experiences according to birthing
sector: mothers birthing in public facilities were more likely to raise concerns about
the quality and/or duration of their in-hospital stay than those in private facilities.
Conversely, mothers who gave birth in private facilities were more likely to raise
concerns about inadequate post-discharge care. Regardless of birthing sector, however,
a substantial proportion of all mothers spontaneously raised concerns about their
experiences of inadequate and/or inconsistent breastfeeding support.
Conclusion
Women who birth in private facilities were more likely to spontaneously report concerns
about their level of post-discharge care than women from public facilities in Queensland,
and publically provided community based care is not sufficient to meet women's needs.
Inadequate or inconsistent professional breastfeeding support remains a major issue
for early parenting women regardless of birthing sector.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 08, 2015
Accepted:
March 23,
2015
Received in revised form:
March 16,
2015
Received:
January 30,
2015
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Australian College of Midwives. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
