Perception and utilization of traditional birth attendants among women attending primary healthcare centres in Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria

Despite the introduction of modern health facilities and safe motherhood initiative programs, some women still patronize TBAs, especially in developing countries which has caused a lot of havoc on the health of the mother and the child. This has triggered the interest of the researchers to assess the perception and level of utilization of traditional birth attendants among women in Ilishan Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria.
This study adopted a descriptive survey design, 126 women were selected using a simple random sampling technique. Two (2) research questions and two (2) hypotheses were formed for the study. The hypotheses were analyzed using PPMC and Chi-square respectively.
The findings revealed a negative perception and a low utilization among women towards Traditional Birth Attendants services. The study further showed a positive insignificant relationship between utilization and perception of women (r = 0.130.; p=0.147> 0.05), also showed a positive significant relationship between the level of education and the utilization of traditional birth attendant with a p-value <0.05 (21, X2=.132.195, r=0.594).
In conclusion, antenatal health education should be effective in raising awareness of issues surrounding the well-being of women and unborn children and the need to constantly make use of approved healthcare centers and skilled birth attendants for delivery. Based on these findings, the researchers recommend that this study be replicated in other communities in Ogun State and even other parts of the country and that the federal government subsidize the price of maternity care to all pregnant women irrespective of their religion, age or economic status.