A qualitative exploration of women's expectations of birth and knowledge of birth interventions following antenatal education.

Background: Expectations of birth, and whether they are met, influence postnatal psychological wellbeing. Intrapartum interventions, for example induction of labour, are increasing due to a changing pregnant population and evolving evidence, which may contribute to a mismatch between expectations and birth experience. NICE recommends antenatal education (ANE) to prepare women for labour and birth, but there is no mandated UK National Health Service (NHS) ANE curriculum.

Codesign and refinement of an optimised antenatal education session to better inform women and prepare them for labour and birth.

Objective: Our objective was to codesign, implement, evaluate acceptability and refine an optimised antenatal education session to improve birth preparedness.

Design: There were four distinct phases: codesign (focus groups and codesign workshops with parents and staff); implementation of intervention; evaluation (interviews, questionnaires, structured feedback forms) and systematic refinement.

Setting: The study was set in a single maternity unit with approximately 5500 births annually.