What Matters to You: Centering Women's Voices in Designing Dignified Maternity Care

The quality of the birthing experience is highly variable. Women describe how they are not listened to or believed when sharing concerns with their medical provider, and in turn do not feel valued or respected. While there has been much focus on supporting providers to deliver effective care, there has been less focus on the the experience of care but the mothers themselves and the impact of care they receive, the manner in which care is delivered and the environment in which it is delivered. Designing better care experience start with asking mothers "what matters to you", but the answers to those questions need to be turned into action. Those answers can drive the way in which facilities are designed, choice of care and, and how care is co-designed and sensitively delivered. The presenters in this panel bring novel insights from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the US into way in which women can be engaged to co-design safer, more dignified, respectful care and equitable care.