Public Health Research 2014, 4(3): 92-97 DOI: 10.5923/j.phr.20140403.03 Contextualising Women Decision Making during Delivery: Socio-Cultural Determinant of Choice of Delivery Sites in Ghana Adadow Yidana * , Mustapha Issahaku Department of Community Health and Family Medicine, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana Abstract The welfare of women and children continue to be at the forefront of national and global millennium health policies. Though these programs and initiatives have been put into place, maternal mortality is still a challenge in many developing countries including Ghana. In many rural communities across the country, quite a number of deliveries still take place at home without skilled supervision. This paper sought to establish sociocultural impediments to the use of health facility as the most ideal place of delivery among a cross section of women in the northern part of Ghana. Using a purposive sampling method, a total of 120 nursing mothers were interviewed. The results suggest a positive relationship between increasing maternal formal education, household income and possibility of delivering at a health facility. However, social and cultural factors have been noted to exert a greater impact on the choice of delivery sites. In view of this, the paper suggests a modification of traditional practices to suite current happening. In addition to the above, there is also the need for deployment of resources needed to combat home delivery, or even if at, make it safer. Keywords Delivery, Health facility, Tradition, Women, Midwives 1. Introduction The health and general wellbeing of women during childbirth plays a critical role in the improvement of reproductive health. The desire to improve reproductive health globally has generated an ongoing debate in parts of the developed world, especially with regard to the right of women to decide whether to deliver at a health facility or at home [15]. Studies on maternal and child health have generated quite a number of useful data in developing countries, majority of which are related to undesirable outcome of home delivery amongst women [22]. The rate at which women receive antenatal care and its quality is very important in predicting the outcome of choice of delivery sites in many developing countries [1]. Thus, policy makers have instituted timely and supervised skilled delivery as a right of every woman, putting the welfare of women at the forefront of national and global health policies [17]. It has often been argued that many of the deliveries still take place at home instead of health care facilities. This situation, it is argued, could lead to loss of lives during delivery, resulting from hitherto preventable causes if not managed well. It is * Corresponding author: adadowy@yahoo.com (Adadow Yidana) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/phr Copyright © 2014 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved on the bases of this that [11] have indicated many maternal deaths could be prevented if all deliveries are managed by skilled personnel. In situations where deliveries take place outside health care facilities, tracking and correcting complications becomes a daunting task. It is here that [5] are right in their observation that pregnancy related complications cannot be reliably predicted. It is against this challenge that, attempts to address women’s needs and health problems have become a major focus globally [17]. Available statistics at the global stage suggest that more than 60 million women deliver at home without skilled care, and about 530 000 die from pregnancy related complication, with 3 million babies coming out as stillbirth [18]. Individual choice for location of childbirth is embedded in society’s conceptualisation of the situation, often seen as a social process. Cultural diversity often leads to differences in the conceptualisation of childbirth in parts of the developing countries, creating a platform where expectant mothers feel reluctant to use health care facilities in times of pregnancy related complications. Consequently, some expectant mothers have developed the penchant of observing normal home births, often surrounded by their families as a normative activity [6]. In a traditionally oriented society, most newborns are delivered at home with the assistance of traditional birth attendants [10], majority of who are not trained. To encourage deliveries at health care settings, and