Mother-friendly hospital programme of Turkey: national intervention to improve the quality of maternity services
Background: The mother-friendly care model and mother-friendly programmes are powerful responses to solve problems in maternity care services including high rates of caesarean section, low breastfeeding rates, and women’s rights issues. Aims: This paper describes the development and implementation of the mother-friendly hospital programme of Turkey. Methods: The Ministry of Health initiated the mother-friendly hospital programme in 2010. National mother-friendly hospital standards, guidelines and evaluation tools were developed. Implementation began in 2015. Results: Training activities were carried out to enable health care workers (e.g. physicians, midwives, nurses) to train staff of hospitals applying to the programme, and to evaluate and monitor their maternity services; 455 health care workers were trained. Participation in the programme is voluntary and hospitals apply for certification. To apply, the hospital’s caesarean section rate must be lower than the country average. As of January 2020, 73 hospitals have been certified as mother-friendly hospitals. Conclusion: As a practical implementation of the mother-friendly approach, Turkey’s experience may be useful to other health systems.