Objective: to gain a deeper understanding of how women who seek care at an early stage experience the latent phase of labour.

Design: a qualitative interview study using the grounded theory approach.

Setting: the study was conducted at a hospital in the southwestern part of Sweden with a range of 1600-1700 deliveries per year. The interviews took place in the women's homes two to six weeks after birth.

Participant: eighteen Swedish women, aged 22-36, who were admitted to the tabour ward while they were stilt in the latent phase of tabour.

Findings: 'Handing over responsibility' to professional caregivers emerged as the core category or the central theme in the data. The core category and five additional categories formed a conceptual model explaining what it meant to women being admitted in the early stage of tabour and their experiences of the Latent phase of tabour. The categories, which all related to the core category, were labelled: (1) 'longing to complete the pregnancy,' (2) 'having difficulty managing the uncertainty,' (3) 'having difficulty enduring the stow progress,' (4) 'suffering from pain to no avail' and (5) 'oscillating between powerfulness and powerlessness.'

Conclusions and implications for practice: findings indicate that women being admitted to the tabour ward in the latent phase of tabour experienced a need for handing over responsibility for the tabour, the welt-being of the unborn baby, and for themselves. Midwives have an important role in assisting women with coping during the latent phase of tabour, and in giving the women opportunity to hand over responsibility. This care should include validation of experienced pain and confirmation of the normality of the slow process, information and support. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background: in Sweden pregnant women are encouraged to remain at home until the active phase of labour. Recommendation is based on evidence, that women who seek care and are admitted in the latent phase of labour are subjected to more obstetric interventions and suffer more complications than women who remain at home until the active phase of labour. The aim of this study was to obtain a deeper understanding of how women, who remain at home until the active phase of labour, experience the period from labour onset until admission to labour ward. Method: interviews were conducted with 19 women after they had given birth to their first child. A Constructivist Grounded theory method was used. Findings: 'Maintaining power' was identified as the core category, explaining the women's experience of having enough power, when the labour started. Four related categories: to share the experience with another', to listen to the rhythm of the body', to distract oneself and to be encased in a glass vessel', explained how the women coped and thereby maintained power. Conclusions: the first time mothers in this study, who managed to stay at home during the latent phase of labour, had a sense of power that was expressed as a driving force towards the birth, a bodily and mental strength and the right to decide over their own bodies. This implies that women who maintain power have the ability to make choices during the birth process. The professionals need to be sensitive, supportive and respectful to women's own preferences in the health-care encounter, to promote the existing power throughout the birthing process. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has reported that women who are admitted to delivery wards in early labour process before an active stage of labour has started run an increased risk of instrumental deliveries. Therefore, it is essential to focus on factors such as self-efficacy that can enhance a woman's own ability to cope with the first stage of labour. However, there was no Swedish instrument measuring childbirth self-efficacy available. Thus, the aim of the study was to translate the Childbirth Self-efficacy Inventory and to psychometrically test the Swedish version on first- time mothers within the Swedish culture.

METHODS: The method included a forward-backward translation with face and content validity. The psychometric properties were evaluated using a Principal Component Analysis and by using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and inter-item correlations. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were used to describe and compare the scales. All data were collected from January 2011 to June 2012, from 406 pregnant women during the gestational week 35-42.

RESULTS: The Swedish version of the Childbirth Self-Efficacy Inventory indicated good reliability and the Principal Component Analysis showed a three-component structure. The Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks Test indicated that the women could differentiate between the concepts outcome expectancy and self-efficacy expectatancy and between the two labour stages, active stage and the second stage of labour.

CONCLUSIONS: The Swedish version of Childbirth Self-efficacy Inventory is a reliable and valid instrument. The inventory can act as a tool to identify those women who need extra support and to evaluate the efforts of improving women's self-efficacy during pregnancy. © 2014 Carlsson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

OBJECTIVE: this study aimed to examine how women׳s childbirth self-efficacy beliefs relate to aspects of well-being during the third trimester of pregnancy and whether there was any association between childbirth self-efficacy and obstetric factors.

DESIGN: a cross-sectional design was used. The data was obtained through the distribution of a composite questionnaire and antenatal and birth records.

SETTING: data were recruited from antenatal health-care clinics in Halland, Sweden.

PARTICIPANTS: a consecutive sample of 406 pregnant women was recruited at the end of pregnancy at gestational weeks of 35-42.

MEASUREMENTS: five different measures were used; the Swedish version of Childbirth Self-Efficacy Inventory, the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire, the Sense of Coherence Questionnaire, the Maternity Social Support Scale and finally the Profile of Mood States.

FINDINGS: results showed that childbirth self-efficacy was correlated with positive dimensions as vigour, sense of coherence and maternal support and negatively correlated with previous mental illness, negative mood states and fear of childbirth. Women who reported high childbirth self-efficacy had less epidural analgesia during childbirth, compared to women with low self-efficacy.

KEY CONCLUSIONS: this study highlights that childbirth self-efficacy is a positive dimension that interplays with other aspects and contributes to well-being during pregnancy and thereby, acts as an asset in the context of childbirth. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.