Shared decision-making

The research on shared decision-making in pregnancy and birth is largely qualitative. Interview studies explore how women experience decision-making for labor and birth, including paired antenatal and postnatal interviews, and how maternity professionals experience supporting them. Papers also look at consent in pregnancy and antenatal and intrapartum care, and at women's experiences of participation in decisions during childbirth in a reference hospital.

A scoping review examines how maternity clinicians use shared decision-making in antenatal care. Other work looks at particular decisions: a mixed methods study of caesarean section decisions at a teaching hospital in Ghana, a qualitative study of why some women choose a high risk birth setting against medical advice in the Netherlands, and an evaluation of a co-designed maternity planning guide.

Parents commonly ask how to take part in choices about their care, what questions to bring and what happens when their wishes differ from a clinician's advice. The listed papers describe experiences more than they settle which tools work best. An educator may want their slides to present decisions as shared conversations and to reflect the range of settings the research covers. The papers below are the ones the Hub tracks on this topic.