Investigate mothers’ perceptions and experiences of natural childbirth and quality of care in childbirth management based on Safe Childbirth Checklist: A qualitative study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Safe Childbirth Checklist (SCC) was designed in an effort to support health workers to perform essential tasks and improve the quality of care (QoC) for mothers and babies during childbirth. Given the fact that human experiences in any society can be influenced by cultural, economic, and social differences. Therefore, the present qualitative study aimed to investigate mothers’ perceptions and experiences of natural childbirth and QoC in childbirth management based on SCC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The current study is a qualitative study that was conducted in 2022–2023 by targeted sampling on women who gave birth based on SCC in two hospitals in Ahvaz. Eighteen women participated in the interview sessions 1 month after giving birth. The conventional content analysis method was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Overall, 870 codes were extracted from the interviews. The interviewed mothers’ satisfaction with the use of SCC was organized into seven main themes, namely “Satisfaction with the comprehensive support of the companion,” “Satisfaction with the comprehensive support of the midwife,” “Satisfaction with the emotional support of the husband,” “Satisfaction with the mutual interaction between the midwife and the parturient mother,” “ Preparation for the challenges of different stages of childbirth and postpartum through training,” “ Satisfaction with the pain management strategies adopted by the companion,” “Satisfaction with skin-to-skin contact and early breastfeeding” and “ Satisfaction with the strengthened relationship between the couples and acceptance of the father’s role after the husband’s meeting with the parturient mother.” CONCLUSION: Implementation of SCC by providing evidence-based practice and midwifery standards to mothers and neonates can help improve women’s experiences of the birth process. By reminding midwives to encourage women to have a companion during childbirth and by giving the necessary training to them about danger signs in every stage of childbirth from admission to discharge, this checklist can not only lead to positive birth experiences but also improve the interaction of mothers with midwives. Therefore, it is recommended that this checklist be used in maternity wards.