Choices for childbirth: a survey of practice in melbourne maternity hospitals

This paper describes a survey of childbirth practices in Melbourne hospitals. Information was collected from 27 of Melbourne's 34 hospitals with obstetric beds. The survey concentrated on aspects of the management of labour and the newborn where patients could expect to exercise a degree of choice. The survey found large variations in the degree of choice offered to patients in different categories of hospital on more than half the questionnaire items. Patients in large public hospitals were in general given the largest range of choice, followed by private hospital patients. Patient choice was very restricted in most small public hospitals.