Women's Birth Choice Request Changes in Ten Years: A Single Primary Care Center Experience

Abstract

Objective: Normal birth is the most cost-effective and healthiest form of birth for mother and baby, but it has become less preferable in recent years. This study has two goals: first, to examine the change in the rate of women's normal birth requests, and second, to examine the changes in factors that may affect this request within a ten-year time period. Materials and Methods: The results of two descriptive cross-sectional researches done in the same primary health care center region in 2007–2008 and 2017–2018 were presented. Data were collected by questionnaire form with face-to-face interviews with women who gave birth in the last year. The chi-square test and t-test were used for statistical comparison. Results: It was observed that women's normal birth request rate decreased. The normal birth request rates of women who were under 25 years, high school graduates, unemployed, and in the middle economic level decreased more than of the others. The rate of women who think that 'women who give birth normally get more pain' increased. Conclusion: In a period in which cesarean rates have increased instead of the desired decrease, the rate of women wishing normal birth has decreased. In the ten-year comparison, it was found that women who did not have sociodemographic characteristics associated with cesarean delivery request (high economic status, employed, higher age, university graduate) in previous studies were also shying away from normal birth. Studies should be conducted on women overcoming their concerns about pain during normal birth.

Keywords

• delivery
• cesarean; normal birth.