Obstetric Violence Through the Perspectives of Women and Midwives in Hospital Birth Settings: A Qualitative Study.

Background/

Objectives

Obstetric violence is increasingly recognised as a violation of women's autonomy, dignity, and right to respectful maternity care, yet its interpretation may differ between women receiving care and midwives providing care within hospital systems. This study explored obstetric violence from the perspectives of women who perceived their childbirth as traumatic and midwives working in hospital birth settings.

Methods

This qualitative study was conducted in one university hospital and two public hospitals in Türkiye. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with 21 women who had experienced vaginal birth within the previous year and 20 midwives with labour and delivery experience. Interviews with women were conducted online, whereas interviews with midwives were conducted face-to-face. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Selected sociodemographic, obstetric, and organisational characteristics were collected descriptively to contextualise the findings.

Results

Three interrelated themes were identified: lack of respectful maternity care, women's emotional needs during childbirth, and systemic constraints affecting midwifery practice. Women described obstetric violence through emotional distress, loss of control, insufficient information, lack of consent, privacy violations, and imposed interventions. Midwives interpreted these experiences in relation to workload, institutional routines, physician-centred decision-making, and limited professional autonomy.

Conclusions

Preventing obstetric violence requires improvements in communication, informed consent, privacy, emotional support, and system-level conditions that enable respectful, woman-centred care.