Women's experiences of childbirth and post-natal healthcare after assisted conception

The proportion of women who give birth after assisted reproduction technology (ART) treatment is increasing. To date, little is known about their experience of childbirth. One of the aims of this study was to investigate the experience of childbirth and the post-natal healthcare after ART.

A prospective, longitudinal study of a systematically recruited consecutive cohort of women who had conceived with ART in Melbourne, Australia, in 2001 was investigated using telephone interviews and self-report questionnaires. The experience of birth was explored 3 months post-partum.

One hundred and sixty-six women who had conceived through ART participated. Compared with other Australian women, participants were more likely to have a Caesarean birth (51% versus 25%, P < 0.0001). Women who had a Caesarean birth were less likely to report having had an active say about the management of the birth (P < 0.01) and to have held their baby at birth (P < 0.0001) and more likely to report disappointment with the birth event (P < 0.0001), severe post-natal pain (P = 0.02) and needing a lot of help or advice with infant feeding (P = 0.001) than those who had a vaginal birth.

After ART, there are highly elevated rates of operative birth which appear to influence early post-natal adjustment.