Women Lived Experience of Choice of Cesarean Delivery: A Phenomenology Study

Cesarean delivery on maternal request is defined as an elective cesarean for term pregnancy in the absence of any maternal or fetal indication. Rate of vaginal delivery and cesarean section is one of the mother health program indexes. Increase of cesarean section and decrease of vaginal birth is representative of poor performance of the health program. The purpose of this study was explanation of nulliparous women''s lived experience of cesarean delivery as a birth choice. This qualitative study with phenomenology approach was conducted on 12 nulliparous women using in-depth interview method and semi-structured. Interviews were done in health care centers or women''s home. The participants discussed reasons for the request for cesarean six weeks after childbirth. All interviews were recorded and analyzed by Colaizzi method. Three main themes and many sub-themes were extracted during this study. The main themes were: fear، unpleasant experience and others encouragement. According to the results of this study and effective factors in choice of elective cesarean in nulliparous women، it seems the best way to reduce cesarean section rate is decreasing the rate of cesarean in nulliparous women. Therefore nulliparous women with knowledge about the benefits، risks and possible complications of delivery methods should encourage selecting vaginal delivery.