Exploring Contributing Factors to Psychological Traumatic Childbirth from the Perspective of Midwives: A Qualitative Study

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: As midwives witness and attend the whole process of childbirth, they have a better understanding of which factors may cause traumatic childbirth. However, because most of the studies paid their attention on mothers, little is known about psychological birth trauma from the perspective of midwives. This study aims to gain a full understanding of which factors may contribute to psychological traumatic childbirth from the perspective of midwives.METHODS: A qualitative research was conducted using in-depth interviews, which involved fourteen midwives from the maternal ward of a tertiary hospital. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and then, Colaizzi's method was used to analyze the contents of the interviews.RESULTS: We proposed four themes and eight subthemes on the influencing factors of psychological traumatic childbirth from the perspective of midwives: low perceived social support (lack of support from family and lack of support from medical staff), hard times (protracted labor in the first stage and futile efforts during the second stage), poor birth outcomes (poor birth outcomes of the mother and poor birth outcomes of the baby), and excruciating pain (unbearable pain of uterine contraction and labor pain was incongruent with the mother's expectations).CONCLUSION: Medical staff should pay attention to psychological traumatic childbirth and its effects, and emphasis on the screening and assessment of birthing women with negative feelings so that their psychological traumatic childbirth can be prevented and decreased.