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Paper short abstract:

Lived realities of women in Uganda who experience either delayed healthcare access or constructive exclusion from public healthcare access. The dangers associated with the couple-centric approach to accessing maternal health services.

Paper long abstract:

Some women experience poor maternal health due to the absence of male partner involvement in their pregnancy journeys. To minimise this, the World Health Organization and existing research have encouraged a couple-centric approach to accessing maternal health services. This position has been backed with a proclamation of the various benefits that male involvement brings to the woman during and post the pregnancy journey however the resultant problems remain overlooked. Based on the author’s fieldwork findings in Uganda, the paper offers an insight into the lived experiences of women that lack male partners during their maternal healthcare visits and the problems they face in the process. The paper begins with a discussion of the justification of male partner involvement in maternal healthcare and this is followed with the implications this has on women that lack male partner support and/or presence. The paper explains the strategies used by women that lack male partner support and/or presence. It concludes that the blanket requirement of women to bring male partners are antenatal visits reinforces the multiple disadvantages on them and disenfranchises such women from seeking and accessing maternal healthcare services in public hospitals.

Key words: maternal health, male partner involvement, lived experiences of women, strategies, multiple disadvantages