Abstract
The objective of the study wass to explore the primiparous women’s lived experiences of their child birth at an institutional facility. The research phenomenon required an in depth inquiry to get an in depth understanding of primiparous women’s perspective. Therefore, a phenomenological research design was selected to study the issue. The researcher has benefitted from the deductive logic (Charmaz, 2006) and used a semi structured interview guide was used as a tool of data collection. Yet it was flexible and was only used to consider the relevant aspect of birthing experience into consideration. For data collection, the potential participants were the primiparous women, who had a live, healthy and vaginal birth with or without epidural, at a health facility, not more than a year ago. Sample size of 10 primiparous women was determined on saturation principle. Participants, from both rural and urban background, were recruited from children OPDs of 4 public and private hospitals in Lahore during Pandemic COVID-19. The concept of birth experience was discussed from social, physical and emotional aspect. The data was recorded, transcribed verbatim and translated in English language. The data was cleaned and researcher developed familiarity by reading and rereading of data. Data analysis was performed following the Van Manon’s approach for phenomenological analysis. The cross cutting themes were identified as 1) Meaning and Motives of child birth 2) Physicality during child birth and 3) Continuous Social Support during labor and delivery. The study concludes that every women is unique and so is their birthing experience. Primiparous women feels accomplished on being mother irrespective of the gender of the child if they have a consistent support from their families, spouse and care providers. Keywords: Primiparous women. Birth Experience, Institutional Birth and Vaginal delivery.
Highlights
Child birth experience is marked as one of the sought for and vital events for most of the women around the world
MATERIAL AND METHODS Research Design Considering the nature of the study, Van Manon’s hermeneutic phenomenology was considered as the most appropriate design to get a holistic view of the phenomenon under investigation. (Smith, 2007)
The findings of the study reveal that primiparous women who delivered vaginally, with or without epidural, had experienced an exhaustive physical sensitivity about the phenomenon
Summary
Child birth experience is marked as one of the sought for and vital events for most of the women around the world. A terrible birth experience at a health facility, from a mother’s understanding, may leave them unsatisfied and lead to future care discontinuity. This situation requires a study to document the narrations and perceptions of women’s child birth experiences. Caesarean section, mother and newborn health, health care professionals’ behaviors, and future family life post-partum are all aspects that women are terrified of throughout pregnancy and childbirth (Wigert et al, 2020). It focuses on empowering women to be more active in maternity and child healthcare (Labonte, 1994; Hermansson & Martensson, 2011) More understanding about their personal experiences and reflections is required in order to empower primiparous mother. Keeping in view the research gap on woman centered birth experiences of primiparous mothers, the study aims to unfold the social, emotional/cognitive and physical aspects of birthing experience
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