Health Care of Pregnant Mothers and Health System Reforms in Iran

Introduction: Improvement of mothers health and providing services to them has been very important in all Iranian health system reforms (IHSR). The aim of this study was to compare the trend of maternal health indicators in the light of the triple IHSRs.Methods: Components of the care of 4730 mothers include the month of onset and frequency of visit, total weight gain, maternal hemoglobin, ultrasound number and type of delivery during three periods of reforms (expansion of health networks, establishing family physician and health transformation plan)were gathered from family health files. They were selected by multi-stage random sampling and analyzed time trend method. Result and Discussion: Starting first and number of care decreased from an average of 3.57 months to 2.56, 9 times to 6.14. Maternal weight gain increased from 7847.16 g to 10424.45, The anemia index also decreased from 13 to 12.86 and the number of ultrasound care increase from .3 to 2.81.And most importantly, the rate of cesarean section increased from 19.8% to 55.4%. We have seen a steady increase in weight gain, ultrasound and cesarean section this is consistent with several other studies in the country. Conclusion: Our finding in the last three decades have not been in line with the triple reforms so other important factors appear to have been involved in these changes which have remained ignorant of reforms