Suomeksi
How will 100-year-old public maternity services survive in rivalry with private maternity care services?
Public maternity care has long been the source of national pride in Finland. In recent years, it has been threatened by a storm of commercial service providers from birth consultants to private maternity clinics entering the market. How the rise of these private maternity services affects the public maternity services and their future is being studied in a research project conducted at Tampere University.
The Finnish public maternity clinic has been a success story measured in more ways than one. The public maternity clinic still reaches almost all expectant parents, offering support and advice for expectant mothers and families with children. In addition to the public maternity clinics, expectant parents are nowadays targeted by private maternity clinics of big private health care providers. Along with the diminishing resources of public health care, public maternity services are faced with pressures from several fronts. The reform in health and social services brings with it uncertainty and more changes.
This is the field on which the project “The Futures of Finnish Maternity Care: Commercial, Political and Experiential Framings” led by Postdoctoral Research Fellow Marjaana Jones focuses at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Study of Tampere University.
– I’m interested in the relationships between the health care services and the people using them as well as in the changes occurring in them. As a researcher I love the fact that I can have an impact on the content of my work and continuously learn something new. Now that I move to study maternity services, I get to explore whole new questions, rejoices Jones.
Parents’ changed expectations opened the market for commercial service providers
In addition to the changes occurred in maternity services, also the expectations and wishes of expectant parents have changed. Currently, services during pregnancy are being offered by private medical centres, which also practice visible direct marketing to consumers, for example through social media and maternity blogs. They also offer various midwife and doula services as well as support for free birth. Not all consumers make a clear choice between the private or public service but create an individual whole of the available options.
– The diversification of maternity services available reflect the many ways in which pregnancy and birth are related to. For example, parents can wish to have more medical interventions than usual, or fewer, describes Jones.
Findings support the development of public maternity services
The research project looks at the commercialization of maternity care, analyses expectant parents’ rationales for choosing maternity care services, and explores parents’ perceptions of maternity services, their conceptualizations of good care and the responses of public services to these needs. In addition, the project studies the political consequences of ‘going private’ for the future of Finnish public welfare system.
– In my project, I strive to produce new findings that can be beneficial for both the decision-makers and the professionals working in maternity services, summarizes Jones.
Keywords: maternity clinic, maternity care services, maternity clinic services, future, health care system, private health care, Tampere University Tampere Institute for Advanced Study