Maternal Health Literacy: A Key to Positive Birth Journeys – A Mixed Analysis

Health literacy is widely defined as “people’s knowledge, motivation and competences to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgments and take decisions in everyday life concerning healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course.” Despite the availability and accessibility of health information, considerable parts of the population still engage in risky health behaviour such as insufficient physical activity, unbalanced nutrition, and smoking. The woman’s experience of care during childbirth is as important as an optimal clinical care to achieve desired outcomes of childbirth and labour according to the World Health Organization (WHO).