To reduce perinatal infant & maternal mortalities, facility-based deliveries has been promoted by the WHO. However, cost has been a strong barrier among expectant mothers to deliver in a facility-based setting hence the implementation of a financial incentive of the “No Balance Billing” (NBB) Policy of PhilHealth to provide free maternity services to indigent mothers. Although there was a significant increase in facility-based deliveries after the implementation of the said policy, some women still choose to deliver at home. The study was designed to determine the prevalence of home and facility delivery and the factors associated with choice of delivery site among mothers. This study was done of two phases. The first phase was a cross-sectional study using random sampling method for barangay selection to determine the prevalence of qualified NBB recipients who delivered at home and in a birthing facility. The second phase was a case-control study using multi-stage sampling design to determine factors favoring home and facility delivery. A pre-tested questionnaire was used to gather data. Results showed the prevalence of qualified “NBB” that delivered at home and in a facility, is 2.25% and 97.75% respectively. For the case-control study, results showed that the following factors favor home delivery: mother decided on her own regarding choice of delivery (OR=23.50,p=0.00), believes that home delivery is safe (OR=4.92,p=0.01), had difficulty looking for a vehicle during labor(OR=35.81,p=0.00) and mothers who are elementary undergraduates (OR=6.92,p=0.00), while 3 factors favor facility delivery: had more than 4 prenatal visits (OR=0.03,p=0.00), believes that health workers are competent (OR=0.05,p=0.00) and women with no cultural traditions (OR=0.27,p=0.04). A series of focus group discussion(FGD) were also done to further validate the case-control study results. which revealed tradition, free maternity services and influence of health workers as factors for choice of delivery site. Tradition, perception of health care delivery, perception of health workers and number of prenatal visits emerged to be the main factors influencing the choice of delivery site among qualified “NBB” recipients in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay. The thematic summary of the FGD discussion revealed that tradition, free maternity services and influence of health workers are strong factors that influence the mother’s choice of delivery site. It is recommended that the “NBB” policy be further disseminated while improving the facility-based delivery system to be culture sensitive.

Keyword: Choice of delivery site for childbirth No balance billing policy recipients