Exploring contributing factors to psychological traumatic childbirth from the perspective of midwives: a qualitative study.

As midwives witness and attend the whole process of childbirth, they have a better understanding of what factors may cause traumatic childbirth. However, since most of the study paid their attention on mothers, less is known about psychological birth trauma from the perspective of midwives. This study aims to gain a full understanding of what factors may contribute to psychological traumatic childbirth from the perspective of midwives.A qualitative research was conducted using in-depth interviews, which involved fourteen midwives from the maternal ward of a tertiary hospital. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and then the Colaizzi's method was used to analyze the contents of the interviews.We proposed four themes and eight sub-themes on the influencing factors of psychological traumatic childbirth from the perspective of midwives: low perceived social support (lack of support from family, lack of support from medical staff), hard times (protracted labor in the first stage, futile efforts during the second stage), poor birth outcomes (poor birth outcomes of mother, poor birth outcomes of baby), and excruciating pain (unbearable pain of uterine contraction, labor pain was incongruent with the mothers' expectations).Medical staff should pay attention to psychological traumatic childbirth and its effects, and emphasis on the screening and assessment of birthing woman with negative feelings, so that their psychological traumatic childbirth can be prevented and decreased.