Work package 3 | Listen2Baby

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Focus groups and interviews to explore women's and partners' experiences of intermittent auscultation (IA).

In early 2023 we carried out focus group discussions and individual interviews with women who experienced IA in their labour. Women were invited to take part after responding to adverts about the study on social media, and distributed through charities and service user organisations. Focus groups and interviews took place either face to face or online as preferred and were digitally recorded with the consent of participants for use in work package 4 co-design activities and transcribed verbatim.

We have spoken to 23 mums and partners so far – thank you to everyone for sharing their experiences and taking part! We will be closing this work package for analysis soon.

We talked about:

'Risk' status in pregnancy and any conversations about monitoring, including any choices, e.g. in relation to intermittent auscultation or continuous electronic monitoring.
How the monitoring was performed within the flow of labour
What went well (made women feel confident/safe) or not so well (made women feel uncomfortable/unsure)
What women would have liked to have known before labour

What's next?

We're starting analysis. Women and partners who took part in a focus group or interview will be invited to join our Listen2Baby Lived-experience User Group to contribute to the toolkit co-design activities in Work package 4.