Women's Decision-Making And Factors Affecting Their Choice Of ...

One of the fascinating findings of the study is that all women planning a
home birth had discussed the issue of place of birth with their partners, while only
10 % of those planning a hospital did. The finding could have a two-fold
interpretation. The first interpretation is that the partner's involvement in the
decision-making is related to risk perception, because, the discussion of options
with partners in the study centred on which of the venues was safer. The couples
therefore discussed the options to make sure they were choosing what each felt
was the safest option. The second interpretation relates to information, and
reinforces the view expressed by 90% of the hospital group that they were not
informed about any other options, in which case there would have been no point
in discussing what they knew to be the only option. Since the hospital birth group
were not offered a choice of home birth, it could be argued that they resigned
themselves to a hospital birth whatever their perceptions of risk or safety related
to hospital birth.
Nevertheless, the result contradicts that of the home birth survey
(Chamberlain, Wraight, and Crowley 1997), which found that 81% of women
choosing to have a baby at the hospital had discussed the planned place with their
husbands. One explanation of the differences in the findings might be because in
a survey women were presented with a list of alternatives and asked to indicate
which one was involved in their decision. In that case, they might have felt
obliged to choose at least one of the alternatives, and the husband might have
looked the most appropriate. In contrast, in a qualitative interview the responses
were spontaneous from the women, which may signify a more accurate
representation of the situation. Nonetheless, it may just be that in the population
used in the home birth survey (Chamberlain Wraight and Crowley 1997)
180