Factors influencing women's perceptions of choice and control during pregnancy and birth: a cross-sectional study

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Date
2021-10
Authors
Leahy-Warren, Patricia
Mulcahy, Helen
Corcoran, Paul
Bradley, Róisín
O'Connor, Mary
O'Connell, Rhona
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BioMed Central
Published Version
10.1186/s12884-021-04106-8
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Abstract
Women across the world value choice and control throughout their maternity care experiences. In response to this health policy and frameworks are adapting and developing. The concepts of choice and control are extrinsically complex and open to interpretation by healthcare professionals and service users, with the two not necessarily aligning. Depending on a number of factors, women's experiences of choice and control within the same maternity care system may be very different. This study aimed to investigate the factors influencing women's perceptions of choice and control during pregnancy and birth in Ireland. We conducted a cross-sectional study using an adapted version of the UK national maternity experience survey (National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit). During March - July 2017, a sample of 1277 women were recruited from the postnatal wards of three maternity units and a tertiary maternity hospital. Poisson regression was used to assess the association between twelve factors and a series of measures of the women's perception of choice and control. Most women reported not having choice in the model or location of their maternity care but most reported being involved enough in decision-making, especially during birth. Women who availed of private maternity care reported higher levels of choice and control than those who availed of public maternity care. This factor was the most influential factor on almost all choice and control measures. Most women experiencing maternity care in Ireland report not having choice in the model and location of care. These are core elements of the Irish maternity strategy and significant investment will be required if improved choice is to be provided. Availing of private maternity care has the strongest influence on a woman's perceived choice and control but many women cannot afford this type of care, nor may they want this model of care.
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Keywords
Choice , Control , Maternity services , Midwifery , Childbirth , Models of maternity care
Citation
Leahy-Warren, P., Mulcahy, H., Corcoran, P., Bradley, R., O'Connor, M. and O'Connell, R. (2021) 'Factors influencing women's perceptions of choice and control during pregnancy and birth: a cross-sectional study', BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 21, 667, (12pp). doi: 10.1186/s12884-021-04106-8
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https://hdl.handle.net/10468/13129
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Nursing and Midwifery - Journal Articles
Public Health - Journal Articles
Copyright
© The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.