Awareness and attitude of pregnant women towards labor analgesia in Babil Province

الملخص EN

The aim of this study is to assess the awareness and attitude of pregnant women in Babil province toward painless labour and their willingness to get the service.

A questionnaire form designed and given to pregnant women in Babil province attending the antenatal clinics in seven primary health care centers, 820 pregnant women responses to the questionnaire form taken for this study.

10.98 % primiparas and 89.02 % are multiparas.

Mean age of respondents was 26.6 ± 6.4.most of the multipararespondents report their pain in the previous labor as very severe and sever.Most of the respondents have no any information about painless labour and 5.1% have little information, their source of information was 36.2% from friends and relatives,20.3 %, from TV.

62.3 % have very high and high fear from next labour pain.Most of women will ask for the service of painless labour if it is available.

59.9 % think labor can’t be without pain.most of the respondents don’t knew who will be responsible for relief of their labor pain.

Conclusion: This study showed poor general knowledge of pregnant women in Babil province about painless labor .

It is recommended that information about painless labor should be given by the antenatal physician, obstetrician or a nurses in a collaborative with anesthesiologists to inform pregnant women about benefits, modalities and limitations of painless labor, Education of the labor room staff about the service and Public education by TV programs.

The persistently low request of painless labor by pregnant women could thus be ascribed to a combination of poor pregnant women awareness and inadequate provision of resources so to start with is implementing standard infrastructure for labor room that can help provision of the service and it necessary taken into consideration by the ministry of health .