Midwive's Point of View on Unwillingness of Mothers to Normal Vaginal Delivery

Over the past years, rate of cesarean section has increased. Due to complications of cesarean section for mother and baby, natural delivery is preferable. However, the tendency of women towards cesarean section is the main factor for its increase. Given that midwives were the first proponent of the culture of normal delivery and are aware of inner motives of mothers, in this study, midwives’ point of view on unwillingness of mothers to normal vaginal delivery, were investigated.
In this descriptive study, the research community was 1180 midwives in the province. Among them, 189 midwives working in the maternity wards, who had passed childbirth physiology workshop, were studied through a researcher-made questionnaire. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed through content validity and its reliability was confirmed by retest. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA statistical test.
In this study, maximum years of service of the midwives, were 30 years, the minimum was 1 year, and the averages was 8 years. The midwives stated that the most important barriers of physiological delivery, respectively, were: fear of labor pain, lack of knowledge or low awareness of mothers about the complications of cesarean section and benefits of normal delivery, inappropriate environment of maternity wards, and shortage of facilities and equipment.
Given that the most important cause of tendency toward cesarean section, is fear of labor pain, thus, the methods of reducing fear of delivery in mothers should be taken into consideration by the authorities since the pre-pregnancy period.