a qualitative interview study exploring pregnant women’s and health professionals’ attitudes to external cephalic version定性访谈研究探索孕妇和健康专业人士的态度外部头版本.pdfVIP

Say et al. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth 2013, 13:4 /1471-2393/13/4 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access A qualitative interview study exploring pregnant women’s and health professionals’ attitudes to external cephalic version 1* 1 2 1 Rebecca Say , Richard Thomson , Stephen Robson and Catherine Exley Abstract Background: Women who have a breech presentation at term have to decide whether to attempt external cephalic version (ECV) and how they want to give birth if the baby remains breech, either by planned caesarean section (CS) or vaginal breech birth. The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes of women with a breech presentation and health professionals who manage breech presentation to ECV. Methods: We carried out semi-structured interviews with pregnant women with a breech presentation (n=11) and health professionals who manage breech presentation (n=11) recruited from two hospitals in North East England. We used purposive sampling to include women who chose ECV and women who chose planned CS. We analysed data using thematic analysis, comparing between individuals and seeking out disconfirming cases. Results: Four main themes emerged from the data collected during interviews with pregnant women with a breech presentation: ECV as a means of enabling natural birth; concerns about ECV; lay and professional accounts of ECV; and breech presentation as a means of choosing planned CS. Some women’s attitudes to ECV were affected by their preferences for how to give birth. Other women chose CS because ECV was not acceptable to them. Two main themes emerged from the interview data about health professionals’ attitudes towards ECV: directive counselling and attitudes towards lay beliefs about ECV and breech presentation.