Respectful maternity care is the universal rights of women and newborns (WRA). WRA produced the ground breaking RMC charter, which has been updated to delineate the rights of newborns and is actively used to raise awareness and create policy change worldwide. Memories of childbearing experiences stay with women throughout their lifetime. Health care providers play a very important role in creating respectful maternity care.

Aim: The aim of the present study was to measure the knowledge of respectful maternity care among nurse-midwives working in maternity units.

Method: A descriptive survey design was adopted in the present study. A self-structured questionnaire was used to collect the information on demographic variables and knowledge on respectful maternity care was measured by using two (2) case scenarios, where the components of respectful maternity care are presented in such a way that the components of RMC are ‘met’; ‘not met’; ‘cannot say based on the scenario’ and ‘not a component of RMC’.

Results: The participants were female registered nurse-midwives working in maternity units with majority, 45% in the age group of 31 to 40 years. The findings of the study demonstrated that majority of the subjects (40%) had poor knowledge followed by 32.5% having good knowledge and 27.5% having average knowledge of respectful maternity care.

Conclusion: The study shows that nurses have knowledge of respectful maternity care but there is a scope for improvement which can be promoted by training and awareness programs in any form.