Prevalence and Associated Factors with Maternal Delays in Seeking Emergency Obstetric Care in Arsi Zone, Oromiya, Ethiopia Cross-sectional Study Design Yirga Wondu 1 , Bekele Dibaba 2 and Roza Amdemichael 2 1 Department of Midwifery, College of Health Science, Arsi University, Asella, Ethiopia 2 Department of Public Health, College of Health Science, Arsi University, Asella, Ethiopia * Corresponding author: Yirga Wondu, Master of Maternal and Reproductive Health Nursing, Arsi University, College of Health Science, Ethiopia, E-mail: wonyir@gmail.com Received date: October 22, 2018; Accepted date: December 13, 201 8; Published date: December 20, 201 8 Copyright: © 2019 Wondu Y, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Objective: To determine the prevalence and associated factors with the maternal delay in seeking emergency obstetrics services among pregnant women, Arsi Zone, Oromiya, Ethiopia, 2016. Methods: A Facility based Cross-sectional study design using a quantitative method was conducted at public health facilities of Arsi Zone. Sample size, 847 was determined using a single population proportion formula. A total of 10 health centers which provide obstetric care selected randomly and sample size proportionally allocated to each facility. Data entered in Epi Info version 3.3.2 software and exported to SPSS version 20 for statistical analysis. P<0.05 considered to declare a statistically significant variable with a 95% confidence interval. Result: From the total 775 participants, 203 (27.2%) of the respondents reported that they faced problem in making a decision to seek emergency obstetric care. The mean time for delay was 90 minutes with a range of 30 minutes to 18 hours. Maternal age, educational level, monthly income, and ANC follow up status were significant predictors of maternal delay in seeking emergency obstetric care. Conclusion: Husbands took the lines to share in making the decision to seek obstetric care. This implies independent decision-making power of women on their own health is low. In order to address maternal delay one health extension workers along with health centers staffs, district officers and programmers should give emphasis for awareness creation, income generating mechanism and capacitating decision making the power of mothers need to be strengthened and expanded in the community. Keywords: Delay; Seeking; Obstetric; Care; Emergency; Arsi zone; Spss, Health center List of abbreviations ANC: Antenatal Care; AOR, Adjusted Odds Ratio; ETB: Ethiopian Birr; EOC: Emergency Obstetric Care; MMR: Maternal Mortality Rate; OR: Odds Ratio; SDG: Sustainable Development Goal; SPSS: Statistical Package for Social Sciences; TBA: Traditional Birth Attendance; WHO: World Health Organization Introduction Many mothers living in developing countries continue to die from pregnancy-related morbidities each year [1,2]. Maternal mortality has been identifed as a priority on health policy and research agendas for developing countries [3,4]. In many low-and-middle-income countries, death rates related to pregnancy are ofen high and have an impact on reproductive-aged women. However, these deaths are mostly avoided by timely and adequate treatment [5]. Te Tree Delays is a model originally developed in the 1990s as a way to understand the environment surrounding maternal mortality and has been used in countries across the world to understand and improve maternal mortality [6,7]. Maternal delays were described as having three levels which have been named frst, second, and third maternal delays respectively [8]. Te frst delay is on the part of the mother, family, or community not recognizing a life-threatening condition. Because most deaths occur during labor or in the frst 24 hours postpartum, recognizing an emergency is not easy. Most births occur at home with unskilled attendants, and it takes skill to predict or prevent bad outcomes and medical knowledge to diagnose and immediately act on complications [8,9]. Te second delay is in reaching a health-care facility and may be due to road conditions, lack of transportation, or location. Te third delay occurs at the healthcare facility [8-12]. Women and their families face socioeconomic and cultural barriers for seeking professional delivery care, such as high costs, long distances to health facilities, lack of knowledge about danger signs during pregnancy, and a tradition of using untrained local practitioners during delivery [11,12]. Maternal delay is one of the contributing factors for high maternal mortality in developing countries. For example, an inability to recognize an emergency may extend the delay in the decision to seek care. While the ability of the patient or a caregiver to recognize an emergency is partially dependent upon the patient’s or caregiver’s level of education [7]. G y ne c o l o g y & O b s t e t r i c s ISSN: 2161-0932 Gynecology & Obstetrics Wondu et al., Gynecol Obstet (Sunnyvale) 2019, 9:1 DOI: 10.4172/2161-0932.1000496 Research Article Open Access Gynecol Obstet (Sunnyvale), an open access journal ISSN:2161-0932 Volume 9 • Issue 1 • 1000496