WOMENS PERCEPTIONS OF CHILDBIRTH AND CHILDBIRTH EDUCATION BEFORE AND AFTER EDUCATION AND BIRTH

Objective: to illuminate women's perceptions of childbirth and childbi rth education before and after education and birth. Design: qualitativ e, using tape-recorded interviews to collect data, Interpretation was performed from Antonovsky's concept sense of coherence. Setting: child birth education, a part of parent education in Sweden. Participants: e leven women expecting their first child, where the pregnancy was plann ed and normal. Measurements and findings: the development of perceptio ns of childbirth and childbirth education was described. The women ado pted the content of the education in different ways, Fear as well as u nreflected knowledge seemed to block acquisition of new knowledge. Fac tors which contributed to a childbirth experience worse than expected were lack of or inconsistent information, Increased knowledge about ch ildbirth and experiences of confirmation during childbirth contributed to a good or better experience than expected. Key conclusion: any mod el of childbirth education which does not take into consideration the individual woman's perceptions of childbirth and childbirth education seems to be inadequate. Implications for practice: the findings stress the importance of individual assessment of expectations of and experi ences of childbirth education. Consistency in information given before and during childbirth supports a sense of comprehensibility, manageab ility and meaningfulness.