Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Commentary on: O'Connell MA, Khashan AS, Leahy-Warren P, Stewart F, O'Neill SM. Interventions for fear of childbirth including tocophobia. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2021(7). doi:10.1002/14651858.CD013321.pub2.
Implications for practice and research
Healthcare providers such as gynaecologists, obstetricians and midwives as well as mental healthcare providers can reduce high-level or intense fears of childbirth in women and strengthen their sense of self-efficacy in the face of delivery, something that could result in a reduction of elective caesarean section.
However, in high-quality randomised clinical studies, the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions on other important outcomes such as maternal satisfaction and women’s anxiety should also be examined.
Context
Pregnancy is a special situation in which there is a natural fear of the process of childbirth. However, the amount of fear is significantly related to the personality and knowledge of the parents in this regard. Numerous clinical studies have investigated the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions in minimising the fear …
Footnotes
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.