Antenatal Advice about Birthing Complications

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Antenatal advice regarding potential intrapartum complications in low risk primiparous women – How much information do women want?

• IRAS ID

  183348

• Contact name

  Katrine E Orr

• Contact email

  k.orr@nhs.net

• Sponsor organisation

  NHS R&D, TASC

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 9 months, 1 days

• Research summary

  The majority of pregnant women will go on to have a normal uncomplicated delivery, however there is a substantial risk of things not going as planned in labour. This study focuses on how much information is given antenatally to pregnant women about the potential complications which can occur during labour and whether women feel the information currently given is sufficient to prepare them for labour. There has been limited research done regarding women's views on this matter.
  
  Antenatal education varies throughout the UK and across the world and different countries have done studies looking at whether their antenatal classes help prepare women for birth. There is no common UK curriculum for antenatal classes.

  Recent studies in 2013 have also evaluated antenatal care given in Australia and Sweden. The results show that 53.4% of women in Sweden and 26.7% of women in Australia felt that there was a deficiency in information given regarding childbirth. This difference may be explained by the fact that Australian women received more visits and therefore perhaps more time was spent talking about the process of labour. It would have been interesting to note if potential labour complications were discussed when talking about childbirth. Unfortunately curricula for these antenatal classes were not included in the studies.

  It is important that we find out how much women really want to know about potential birthing complications as it will allow us to better provide this information as required. This study will use focus groups and questionnaires to collate women's opinions on these matters.

• REC name

  East of Scotland Research Ethics Service REC 1

• REC reference

  15/ES/0104

• Date of REC Opinion

  21 Aug 2015

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion