Sarah Buckley's game-changing report, Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing: Evidence and Implications for Women, Babies, and Maternity Care, provides the evidence that supporting, promoting, and protecting the normal physiology of childbirth produces the best outcomes for mothers and babies. In this article, a childbirth educator recommends key points from Buckley's report that should be include...

Background and aim Postpartum period is associated with significant changes in the quality of women's lives. These changes can affect the health of both the mother and child. Given the importance of the postpartum period and the factors influencing quality of life after childbirth especially the method of childbirth, the aim of this study was to determine the relationship between quality of lif...

This study investigated the association between fear of childbirth (FOC) and women's knowledge about painless childbirth methods. The study was performed on 900 multiparous women within the last month of pregnancy. Data was obtained through a questionnaire including the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire (W-DEQ) Turkish form A. FOC was defined as W-DEQ sum score ≥85. Women were ...

The aim of this paper is to provide a review of the emerging literature on the relationship between the experience of difficult childbirth and the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). First, we discuss the criteria for diagnosis of PTSD and the implications that changes in these criteria over the past decade have had for women who experience a traumatic childbirth. Although the...

This paper focuses on childbirth in Japan's aristocratic households during the Heian period (794-1185). Drawing on various sources, including court diaries, visual sources, literary records, and Japan's first medical collection, with its assortment of gynaecological and obstetric prescriptions, as well as Buddhist and other ritual texts, this short excursion into the cultural history of childbi...

The relationship between childbirth and serious mental illness has been known since the time of Ancient Greece. It was first described in the psychiatric literature by Esquirol and later by his pupil Marce in 1857. A substantial number of women become mentally ill, often for the first time, following childbirth. There are few events associated with such a measurable and predictable risk to ment...

BACKGROUND Continuous support by a midwife during childbirth has shown positive effects on the duration of active labour, use of pain relief and frequency of caesarean section (CS) in women without fear of childbirth (FOC). We have evaluated how continuous support by a specially assigned midwife during childbirth affects birth outcome and the subjective experience of women with severe FOC. ME...

OBJECTIVE Prospectively track teen childbirths in maltreated and nonmaltreated females and test the hypothesis that child maltreatment is an independent predictor of subsequent teen childbirth over and above demographic characteristics and other risk factors. METHODS Nulliparous adolescent females (N = 435) aged 14 to 17 years were assessed annually through age 19 years. Maltreated females we...

The purpose of this research was to discover what experiences, including feelings, women who are survivors of incest have during childbirth. The recognition that the childbirth experience may trigger memories of incest that will then alter the course of childbirth was the framework for the study. This exploratory research was undertaken using a phenomenological approach. The six participants we...