Medline ® Abstracts for References 8,9

BACKGROUND: A woman's satisfaction with the childbirth experience may have immediate and long-term effects on her health and her relationship with her infant, but there is a lack of current research in this area.

AIM: This paper reports a study to examine multiple factors for their association with components of childbirth satisfaction and with the total childbirth experience.

METHOD: A correlational descriptive study was conducted with 60 low-risk postpartum women, aged 18-46 years, with uneventful vaginal deliveries of healthy full-term infants at two medical centres in the south-eastern United States. The Labor Agentry Scale, McGill Pain Questionnaire and Mackey Childbirth Satisfaction Rating Scale and a background questionnaire were completed by women. Obstetrical data were collected from the medical record.

FINDINGS: Personal control was a statistically significant predictor of total childbirth satisfaction (P = 0.0045) and with the subscale components of satisfaction (self, partner, baby, nurse, physician and overall). In addition, having expectations for labour and delivery met was a significant predictor of satisfaction with own performance during childbirth.

CONCLUSIONS: Personal control during childbirth was an important factor related to the women's satisfaction with the childbirth experience. Helping women to increase their personal control during labour and birth may increase the women's childbirth satisfaction.

Satisfaction in childbirth is influenced by individual and environmental factors. Of specific interest in this study is the extent to which women feel that they have been able to control what happened to them during labour. The main purpose of this study was to examine the influence of personal control on women's satisfaction with pain relief during labour. A questionnaire-based retrospective study of women's pain experiences within 48 hours of delivery was carried out on the postnatal ward of one teaching hospital in Northern Ireland. One hundred women who had had a vaginal delivery consented to take part in the study. Two main measures were used in the study; personal control in and satisfaction with pain relief during labour. The key finding of this study indicates that feelings of personal control influenced positively the women's satisfaction with pain relief during labour. Demographic and other psycho-social variables had little impact on the women's satisfaction scores. These findings have implications for clinical practice and for the management of maternity services and are discussed.