More than half of Canadian women who gave birth during a three-month period last year found their overall experience of labour and birth to be "very positive."
The from Statistics Canada also found that one-quarter of mothers (26 per cent) considered their most recent birth "somewhat positive." The remaining 20 per cent chose a neutral or a negative rating.
The national survey was the first-ever of maternity experiences of women in Canada. It asked 6,421 mothers, whose average age was 30, questions on satisfaction with health care, maternal and infant health, infant feeding choices, smoking, alcohol and drug use choices, physical and sexual abuse, stressful life events and post-partum depression.
The goal of the survey was to identify those areas that need strengthening in Canadian maternity health services, from the perspective of women.
The survey found that where a mother gave birth didn't affect her birth experience satisfaction. Nor did it matter if she had a caesarean delivery or a vaginal delivery, or whether she was having her first baby or not.
However, women whose primary caregiver at birth was a midwife rated their labour and birth experiences as "very positive" more often (71 per cent) than those cared for by obstetrician/gynaecologists, family doctors or nurses and nurse practitioners (53 per cent).
About three-quarters were "very satisfied" with the respect shown to them by caregivers, their caregivers' perceived competence, concern for their privacy and dignity and their involvement in decision-making.
While nearly two-thirds of women (65 per cent) were very satisfied with the compassion and understanding they were shown by their health care providers, only 62 per cent were very satisfied with the information they were given by caregivers.
Seven per cent of the women reported symptoms indicative of depression in the interview, which was conducted five to 14 months post-partum.
StatsCan says that other countries that use the same post-partum depression screening tool, such as the United States and Sweden, report between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of women with post-partum depression.
A full report on the Maternity Experiences Survey will be available from the Public Health Agency of Canada in May, 2008.
