Hospital practices and family support in maternity wards

Abstract

This study aims to determine the hospital practices implemented before, during, and after birth in Turkey, and to identify the support to families during this process. Purposive sampling was used in the study to identify the hospitals to be surveyed. Ankara, İstanbul, and İzmir, the provinces with the highest number of hospitals in Turkey, were selected for the collection of data. There were 178 eligible private hospitals in these provinces. The questionnaire form of the Canadian Hospitals Maternity Policies and Practices Survey was used to collect data and the necessary permissions were obtained. There are many restrictions and variations in maternity-related hospital practices in Turkey. 71.4% of the responding private hospitals identified themselves as baby-friendly. 57.1% had a policy facilitating families being together immediately after birth, 39.5% encouraged the presence of the father in the delivery room. 44.9% did not have any policy for assessing women who were going home to potentially violent situations. Eighty-five percent reported that they did not have a written policy or guidelines about procedures regarding labor, birth, or postpartum periods. This study recommended that private hospitals should review their maternal practices and routines in an evidence-based way that helps parents, culturally sensitive standards for mothers should be developed and supervised by related health authorities, and structures should be created to effectively deal with patients’ complaints.