Maternity Care in Rural Scotland
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The risks and benefits to pregnant women and mothers, when choosing whether to have a baby in a local unit or referral unit.
IRAS ID
211209
Contact name
Hugo van Woerden
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Highland
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 13 days
Research summary
How do women and their families make the decision about where to have their baby?
For many families, the decision is based on medical and midwifery advice & perceptions of risk to mother and baby: this often decreases the place of birth options in order to reduce the risk of harm/increase safety. As well as assessing clinical risk, women have other important issues that influence their place of birth decision making: such as a sense of belonging to a local community or the need to be close to wider family networks.
This study seeks to examine the views of pregnant women and mothers in relation to the potential risks and benefits that are important to them when coming to a decision about where to give birth: what factors influence women’s decision making when they live at a distance from access to full obstetric and neonatal services.
Knowledge of the views of pregnant women and mothers is important to help healthcare professionals and pregnant women share the decision about when to give birth in a local community maternity unit (CMU) aand when to travel to a larger maternity unit that, in a remote and rural context, is further away from home.
This study will use a number of focus groups to obtain information on the above and standard qualitative techniques to analyse the results.
REC name
East of Scotland Research Ethics Service REC 1
REC reference
17/ES/0086
Date of REC Opinion
1 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion