WOMEN’S SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE OF CHILDBIRTH: WHICH PREDICTORS?

It is recognized that the experience of childbirth can influence post-partum mothers’ adjustment. If a positive birth experience may facilitate mother-newborn first interactions, a stressful or negative experience may impair the mothers’ emotional and physical wellbeing and may relate to post-partum depression. Childbirth experience can be influenced by medical-obstetric variables, but also by women’s expectations towards labor and delivery. The present study aims to investigate whether women’s expectations related to childbirth, and specifically fear of childbirth, and some childbirth medical-obstetric variables (complications or problems during labor and delivery, type of delivery, use of epidural analgesia) predict the subjective experience of childbirth. 117 Italian first-time pregnant women completed the Wijma Delivery Expectancy Questionnaire (version A) between the 32nd and 37th week of pregnancy (time 1) and the Wijma Delivery Experience Questionnaire (version B) 30-40 days postpartum (Time 2). Furthermore, some information about delivery (type of delivery, labor duration, epidural analgesia) were obtained from the maternal ward birth records. Results revealed that women’s childbirth experience is significantly predicted by complications during labor and delivery and by the type of delivery (vaginal versus operative delivery/emergency cesarean section). Contrarily, neither the labor duration nor the use of epidural analgesia or women’s expectations towards childbirth predict the mothers’ subjective experience. Clinical implication will be discussed, with particular attention to the role that the birth experience can play in the mother-infant post-partum wellbeing