Interest in alternative birth settings in Finland

Abstract

The study shows a discrepancy between expressed interests and actually realised choices of birth settings. The majority of female and male survey respondents would choose conventional hospital care for birth. However, the fact that even some women who had earlier birth experience preferred some form of alternative to the conventional hospital birth should be taken as a sign of women wanting choices in birth care.

A population based study of Swedish women’s opinions about antenatal, delivery and postpartum care

“…Early postpartum discharge, i.e. within 24 hours, was preferred by 17%, which is the same as in one study from Finland (7).…”

“…The actual number of home deliveries in Sweden is low, only one in 3000 deliveries. In a survey from Finland 6% of the women expressed interest in home delivery (7) but the actual rate of planned home births in Finland according to the Finnish medical birth registry was only 0.01%. The majority of women preferred to be delivered within 12 hours after the start of labor, which is in agreement with the opinion of the group from Dublin (8) who have propagated for active management of labor.…”

“…The women’s attitudes and knowledge to various topics and measures related to delivery and antenatal and postnatal care was assessed using a graded scale (1–7) which has been assessed and validated previously (4). All questions were structured in their character.…”

A population based study of Swedish women’s opinions about antenatal, delivery and postpartum care

“…The actual number of home deliveries in Sweden is low, only one in 3000 deliveries. In a survey from Finland 6% of the women expressed interest in home delivery (7) but the actual rate of planned home births in Finland according to the Finnish medical birth registry was only 0.01%. The majority of women preferred to be delivered within 12 hours after the start of labor, which is in agreement with the opinion of the group from Dublin (8) who have propagated for active management of labor.…”