Women's expectations of maternity services: A community-based survey
Section snippets
Background
Few birthing options are available to Queensland women. Up until 2006 there were only two small birth centres which provided care to 457 women a year; representing 0.9% of the 50,777 births per annum.1 Demand for birth centre care exceeds supply by as much as 3:1 despite no advertising and numerous access barriers. Standard maternity care is medicalised with a 32% caesarean section rate2 and fragmented service delivery.3 The provision and organisation of maternity services has largely been
Method
A short, self-report survey distributed to a convenience sample of Queensland women.
Results
Sixty-three women completed the survey. Twenty-four women (38.1%) had not borne any children, 23 (36.5%) had given birth to one child and 16 (25.4%) had given birth to more than one child. Parity for the sample is shown in Table 1. Most parous women reported that they had given birth in hospital (79.5%, n = 31) while the remaining women in this group (20.5%, n = 8) had attended a Birth Centre. No women reported giving birth at home. There were no statistically significant differences in responses
Discussion
This small survey confirmed that women are concerned about safety for their baby and seek control and participation in decision making during birth. This finding is consistent with other studies.3, 6 Other studies have also demonstrated that most women value maternity care including educational preparation for birth, and want to breastfeed successfully.18, 19 Similarly, many women reported a lack of choice in birth care and poor quality postpartum care.3
Avoiding pain in labour was rated as
Conclusions
Few studies have investigated the extent to which maternity services are focussed on women's needs. The results of this small exploratory study with a self-select, non-representative sample should be interpreted with caution however, it has identified that women are concerned about safety for their baby and seek control and participation in decision making during birth, but may be misinformed about the risks and benefits of various options. When assured of safety, preferences for the place of
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Home Midwifery Association, Maternity Coalition, and Association for Improvement of Maternity Services for distributing the survey. Thank you also to Dr. Sarah Buckley for help developing the questionnaire. There has been no financial assistance associated with this project.
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