Background: Many childbearing women from Māori and Pasifika backgrounds living in the Logan region of Queensland, Australia experience poor health outcomes. Compared to the general population of childbearing women, Māori and Pasifika women are more likely to experience gestational diabetes mellitus and obesity, are less likely to attend recommended antenatal visits and present for initial antenatal visits at later gestations.

Aim: To describe women’s awareness of maternity service options, explore the barriers to participating in pregnancy care and identify possible enablers to improved uptake of services.

Method: Qualitative descriptive. Thirty-three women attended one of six culturally specific focus groups. Latent content analysis was used to analyse the data set.

Findings: The key source of information for childbearing women was their families. Poor communication, lack of cultural safety and financial constraints were the major barriers to accessing services. Conversely, enablers were perceived to be continuity of midwifery care that was delivered in the community and was culturally safe.

Discussion: Strategies to increase uptake of maternity services and optimise services to better meet the needs of women from Māori and Pasifika backgrounds are needed. These should be partnership-based, engage women and families, incorporate cultural needs and preferences and provide services at accessible community locations.

Conclusion: These findings may be relevant to other groups of women, such as women from culturally diverse backgrounds and from communities experiencing poorer health outcomes.