Birth Environments and Labour Choices Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Birth Environments and Labour Choices - Essay Example The overall object of providing care to women experiencing labour and birth is to bring about a convincing experience for not only the woman but also to the entire family, while preserving their health, responding immediately to emergencies and preventing complications. A pregnant woman has to make various decisions regarding the place and the way she wishes to deliver her baby. As there are various options for where she may decide to have the birth along with the options of how she may decide to deliver. Despite all these factors, the environment a woman chooses to labour can greatly impact the amount of anxiety and fear she may experience. The birth setting is greatly powerful and can be regarded as a differentiating factor between a traumatic or fulfilling experience of childbirth. Attention to detail as well as careful concern of the different birth environment dimensions constitutes most favourable circumstances for the progression of labour. Hospital is an estranging environment for majority women, in which privacy issues and institutionalised routines can lead to feelings of lack of control (Lock and Gibb, 2003). It has been reported that the interventions and technology that has become usual on various labour wards was concerned in womenâ⠂¬â„¢s frustration with labour (Lumley and Brown, 1994). Enhanced anxiety induced through lack of control can intervene with the regular effective labour physiology (Steele, 1995). Since the control or lack of control are regarded as essential to the women’s labour experience and their consequential wellbeing (Simkin, 1992). It has been found that there are three categories of birth places (an essential part of the birth environment) from which women may chose the one they suppose will be the most comfortable for them during the different phases of labour. These include home birth, birth centres and hospitals.