Background: In Sweden approximately 100.000 childbirths occur every year. Almost all of them take place in a delivery unit. According to World Health Organization 70-80% of all births could be normal. Normal childbirth is defined as spontaneous in onset, low risk at the start of labour and remaining so throughout labour and delivery. The infant is born spontaneously in the vertex position between 37-42 completed weeks of pregnancy. After birth mother and infant are in good condition. Midwives area of expertise is normal pregnancy and childbirth and according to ICM they should promote normal childbirth. The goals of maternity care are a healthy mother and child and a positive birth experience. These goals should be reached with as few interventions as possible in the birth process. However, studies show that interventions are common in both normal and complicated childbirth and the numbers of normal childbirths as defined above are unknown. The aim of this study was to describe the amount of normal versus complicated childbirths in Swedish maternity care.



Method: All maternity units in Sweden are invited to partcipate. At the participating maternity units midwives will fill in a questionnaire for each childbirth during a two- week period (3800 deliveries). The questionaire consits of 1) an instrument, the Bologna Score, based on WHO recommendations for normal birth that assess whether childbirth is managed as normal versus complicated (7 items), 2) study specific questions (3 items) and 3) background variables (8 items). For items in the Bologna Score, the data will be analyzed using descriptive and analytic statistics. Subgroup analysis will be performed for different age groups, parity, smoking and different levels of care.





Results: Data will be collected in late spring 2007 and processed during the autumn 2007. The results will be presented at the congress.