Factors affecting the duration of postnatal visits.

24 community midwives recorded details of 783 postnatal visits over a 2 week period. The findings provide a description of postnatal visiting practice in Lothian Region, Scotland. Analysis revealed that 10 factors were significantly associated with the duration of visits. These could be grouped as follows: time consuming procedures (physical examination of the mother or baby, PKU testing), administration-related (the number of other visits that day, the need to liaise with general practitioners or health visitors, whether the mother was already known to the midwife, the time kept waiting at the house), feeding-related (the existence of feeding problems, whether the mother had breast fed previously) and delivery-related (the existence of complications during the delivery). The presence of health, social or emotional problems, or the lack of family/partner support was not associated with longer visits. The implications of these findings are discussed.