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The s t ud y s a lllp l e . was made up mostly of wo men from low
scc I o - e c c noafc backgrounds, reflecting basically the socio­
economic situation of the majority of women i n the region. An
observation from t h e author's clinical e x p e r i e nc e s in KUllIll.si,
i s t ha t there is the t endency for the more ind i g e nt women to
delive r at t he SUbsidis e d government he a l t h centres while t he
more we ll- to-do mother s see k the services of the more
"ex pen s i ve" private materni t y homes .
Ove r half ( 5 5 . 5\) of the wo me n were in their t we nt i e s ,
wi th less than a fifth of them being teenagers . Their parity
distribution ranged from on e t o twelve births. with a mean of
2.8 b i r t hs. Over a t hird o f t he m were primipara (J9 . H:);
grand-multipara formed a fifth of the sample. Thus i n terms of
a ge and parity-related risk, this sample c a n be described as
having a s izable prop ortion of high risk s Ub j e c t s . Indeed over
three quarters (78 .4'l of study subjects were identified a s
ha ving at least o ne pregnancy o r labour risk factor.
comparing the a ge and pa rity risk rates obtained i n this
s tU d y sam ple to the na t i ona l r ate s reported in 19 9 0 {24J, the
p reva lence of these two risk f actor'i (that is age less than 20
or greater tha n 35 ye ars and par ity of more t ha n 4 b i r ths ) are
muc h les s . Th e y a re about half the nationally reported rates
of about 40 % for t he two f actors.
Rumasi district is a n urban d i str i ct. Ur ban wo men in
Gha na ha v e be t ter socio-economic status , be t t e r h ealth cere ,