Exploring midwives perceptions and experiences of home birth

Abstract

In the context of the low national home-birth rate, a local home birth service was developed. Since its implementation, there has been no formal review of factors that may influence the home birth service’s effectiveness. Midwives’ perceptions and experience of home birth, which can have an impact on the home birth rate, has been largely unexplored. This service evaluation used a qualitative approach, which highlights that midwives believe issues such as: exposure to home birth, midwifery philosophy, essential home birth training and investment from management would increase midwives’ feelings of confidence in home birth, potentially increasing local home birth rates