BACKGROUND Maternal mortality remains high in sub-Saharan Africa. Health facility intra-partum strategies with skilled birth attendance have been shown to be most effective to address maternal mortality. In Zambia, the health policy for pregnant women is to have facility childbirth, but less than half of the women utilize the facilities for delivery. 'Born before arrival' (BBA) describes childb...

James Young Simpson was one of the first obstetricians to administer anesthesia during childbirth in nineteenth century Scotland. Before his work in the 1800s, physicians had few ways to reduce the pain of childbirth. Simpson experimented with the use of ether and chloroform, both gaseous chemicals, to temporarily relieve pain. He found that those chemicals both successfully inhibited the pain ...

BACKGROUND Childbirth fear is linked with lower labor pain tolerance and worse postpartum adjustment. Empirically validated childbirth preparation options are lacking for pregnant women facing this problem. Mindfulness approaches, now widely disseminated, can alleviate symptoms of both chronic and acute pain and improve psychological adjustment, suggesting potential benefit when applied to chil...

BACKGROUND Women's satisfaction with childbirth is an important measure of the quality of maternity care services. This study aims to address factors related to women's childbirth satisfaction in physiological and routine childbirth groups. MATERIALS AND METHODS This descriptive-analytical study was conducted among 340 women in physiological and routine childbirth groups in 2012. Women were s...

BACKGROUND Childbirth is a demanding event in a woman's life. The aim of this study was to explore whether a brief intervention in the form of an antenatal course in self-hypnosis to ease childbirth could improve the childbirth experience. METHOD In a randomized, controlled, single-blinded trial, 1,222 healthy nulliparous women were allocated to one of three groups during pregnancy: A hypnosi...

Investigating childbirth, one of the biggest moments of a woman’s life, this thesis examines the reasons behind women’s preferred birthing methods. This research explores the fundamental decisions women make during the birthing process: the amount of prenatal care mothers will receive, the type of health care provider they will use, picking the place of delivery, views on technological and medi...

OBJECTIVES To describe the association between fear of childbirth and social, demographic and psychological factors in a cohort of 30 480 healthy nulliparous women with uncomplicated singleton pregnancies. DESIGN Nationwide population-based study. SETTING The Danish National Birth Cohort. POPULATION Healthy nulliparous women (n= 30 480) with singleton pregnancies. METHODS Data from comp...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the prevalence of fear of childbirth in a nationwide sample and its association with subsequent rates of caesarean section and overall experience of childbirth. DESIGN A prospective study using between-group comparisons. SETTING About 600 antenatal clinics in Sweden. SAMPLE A total of 2,662 women recruited at their first visit to an antenatal clinic during three p...

AIMS This paper is a report on a study analysing the effect of the umbilical cord cutting experience on fathers' emotional involvement with their infants. BACKGROUND Participation in childbirth offers an opportunity for father and mother to share the childbirth experience, so it is vital that midwives improve the fathers' participation in this event. DESIGN A quasi-experimental study with a...

BACKGROUND In recent years Rwanda has achieved remarkable improvement in quality of maternity care services but there is evidence of deficiencies in care quality in terms of disrespectful care. Women's overall childbirth experience is an important outcome of childbirth and a factor in assessing quality of care. The aim of this study was to investigate how women's overall childbirth experience i...