Examining the experience of childbirth and its predictors among women who have recently given birth.
Faeze Khalife-Ghaderi, Leila Amiri-Farahani, Shima Haghani and 1 others
PMID 33318813WHAT IT FOUND
Women's mean childbirth experience score was 55.73, above the tool's median score of 52.5.
Higher birth environment satisfaction, more uplifted and less hassled pregnancy feelings, companion presence, being attended by a midwife, and epidural or spinal anaesthesia were associated.
Key findings
01The mean childbirth experience score was 55.73, higher than the tool's median score of 52.5.
02Satisfaction with the birth environment was significantly correlated with childbirth experience, with experience scores increasing as environment satisfaction increased.
03Husband's education, regular pregnancy care, person giving birth, companion presence, epidural or spinal anaesthesia, perineal conditions, pregnancy uplift and hassle, and birth environment satisfaction explained 39.8% of the changes in childbirth experience.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it shows associations at one time point and cannot show that any factor caused a better childbirth experience. Pregnancy experience was assessed during labour, when pain may affect reports of uplift and hassle. The study was done at one hospital in Iran and included only women with singleton full-term natural births and healthy infants, so it may not apply to high-risk births, caesarean births, complicated neonates, or other settings. The study used a single hospital and a continuous sampling method, so generalisability may be limited. Childbirth experience and predictors were self-reported by questionnaires.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The article text does not state a funding source.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the regression results as proof that a companion, being attended by a midwife, epidural or spinal anaesthesia, or a better birth environment causes a positive childbirth experience. These factors were measured once in a cross-sectional survey, and the study did not test them as interventions.