Community Medicine Abstracts - College of Medicine and Health ...

Project No. 188 (C-2001/2)The UAE Birth Experience - How to Make the Hospital More Like a Home?Student Authors: Hessa Humaid Saeed Al-Ghaith, Mariam Rashed A Marzouq Al-MehairbiFaculty Supervisors: Dr. P. Barss, Dr. P. BadrinathAbstract:Objectives To study national and non-national women in the UAE to assess theirattitudes towards home and hospital births.Methods Two questionnaire surveys were done. The first one was self-administeredand or interviewer administered questionnaire for all women who delivered in thepostnatal wards in the 3 main obstetric hospitals in Al-Ain district, United ArabEmirates, during a 2-week period in 2002. The study population included 134 women(69 local and 65 non-locals) who had vaginal delivery with a live birth. The secondquestionnaire was for assessing the different features of the 3 hospitals.Results 42% of subjects thought that the government should provide staff for homebirth. Furthermore, 55% of UAE-nationals felt that the government should providestaff for home birth as compared to non-nationals (P=0.001). 47% of subjectspreferred a doctor and nurse to conduct the delivery at home. 99% and 96% ofsubjects thought that hospital births are safer for them and their babies and moresatisfactory for them. 61% of subjects thought that home birth is more painful thanhospital birth.Conclusions UAE-national women feel that the government should provide theprofessional staff for home birth. This expressed wish should be further assessed in afollow up survey, to verify the numbers of women who would be likely to use such aservice, if it were introduced. Finally, hospitals should provide a more home-likeenvironment, in order to improve the current child-birth experience for mothers in theUnited Arab Emirates.