Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, California, United States of America.
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Feb 8;19(2):e0292802. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292802. eCollection 2024.
Women in South Asia often return to their natal home during pregnancy, for childbirth, and stay through the postpartum period-potentially impacting access to health care and health outcomes in this important period. However, this phenomenon is understudied (and not even named) in the demographic or health literature, nor do we know how it impacts health.
The aim of this study is to measure the magnitude, timing, duration, risk factors and impact on care of this phenomenon, which we name Temporary Childbirth Migration.
Using data from 9,033 pregnant and postpartum women collected in 2019 in two large states of India (Madhya Pradesh and Bihar) we achieve these aims using descriptive statistics and logistic regression models, combined with qualitative data from community health workers about this practice.
We find that about one third of women return to their natal home at some point in pregnancy or postpartum, mostly clustered close to the time of delivery. Younger, primiparous, and non-Hindu women were more likely to return to their natal home. Women reported that they went to their natal home because they believed that they would receive better care; this was born out by our analysis in Bihar, but not Madhya Pradesh, for prenatal care.
Temporary childbirth migration is common, and, contrary to expectations, did not lead to disruptions in care, but rather led to more access to care.
We describe a hitherto un-named, underexplored yet common phenomenon that has implications for health care use and potentially health outcomes.
南亚的女性在怀孕期间、分娩期间和产后往往会回到娘家，这可能会影响她们在这个重要时期获得医疗保健和健康结果的机会。然而，这种现象在人口学或健康文献中研究不足（甚至没有命名），我们也不知道它如何影响健康。
本研究旨在衡量这种现象的规模、时间、持续时间、风险因素及其对护理的影响，我们将其命名为临时分娩迁移。
我们使用 2019 年在印度两个邦（中央邦和比哈尔邦）收集的 9033 名孕妇和产后妇女的数据，使用描述性统计和逻辑回归模型来实现这些目标，并结合社区卫生工作者关于这种做法的定性数据。
我们发现，约三分之一的女性在怀孕期间或产后的某个时候会回到娘家，大多数人都集中在分娩前后。年轻、初产妇和非印度教徒的女性更有可能回到娘家。女性们表示，她们回到娘家是因为她们相信自己会得到更好的照顾；这一点在我们对比哈尔邦的分析中得到了证实，但在中央邦却没有得到证实，因为产前护理在那里得到了更多的关注。
临时分娩迁移很常见，与预期相反，它并没有导致护理中断，反而导致了更多的护理机会。
我们描述了一种迄今未命名、研究不足但却很常见的现象，这对医疗保健的使用和潜在的健康结果都有影响。
