Women's perceptions of childbirth and childbirth education before and after education and birth

Abstract

Objective: to illuminate women's perceptions of childbirth and childbirth education before and after education and birth. Design: qualitative, using tape-recorded interviews to collect data. Interpretation was performed from Antonovsky's concept sense of coherence. Setting: childbirth education, a part of parent education in Sweden. Participants: eleven women expecting their first child, where the pregnancy was planned and normal Measurements and findings: the development of perceptions of childbirth and childbirth education was described. The women adopted the content of the education in different ways. Fear as well as unreflected knowledge seemed to block acquisition of new knowledge. Factors which contributed to a childbirth experience worse than expected were lack of or inconsistent information. Increased knowledge about childbirth and experiences of confirmation during childbirth contributed to a good or better experience than expected. Key conclusion: any model of childbirth education which does not take into consideration the individual woman's perceptions of childbirth and childbirth education seems to be inadequate. Implications for practice: the findings stress the importance of individual assessment of expectations of and experiences of childbirth education. Consistency in information given before and during childbirth supports a sense of comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness.