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Pregnancy

Home birth in Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study

02 April 2025
Research
02 April 2025
Volume 33 · Issue 4
A home birth setting with a midwife

Abstract

Background/Aims

Various factors can influence a woman's decision on where to give birth, and the COVID-19 pandemic led to a reported increase in home births. This study aimed to explore Iranian couples' experiences of birth at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

This qualitative study gathered data from a purposive sample of six Iranian women and four men via in-depth semi-structured interviews. Conventional content analysis was used.

Results

The main theme, ‘linking dread and joy’, had two subthemes describing factors that influenced participants' experiences: subjective factors, such as faith, motivation and curiosity, and objective factors, such as having an experienced midwife and suitable equipment.

Conclusions

Home birth planning could be included in safe birth guidelines for Iran. This would need to consider all aspects of health (physical and psychological) and the needs and preferences of women with low-risk pregnancies.

Implications for practice

It is recommended that further efforts be made to examine the status of home birth across Iran.

Choosing where to give birth is an important decision (Meredith and Hugill, 2017). In some countries, women can choose to give birth at home or in a hospital (Verhoeven et al, 2022), while in others, health policies require women to receive birth services in medical centres and hospitals (Rigg et al, 2017). For example, the American Committee of Obstetrics and Gynecology announced that while they respect women's right to choose their place of birth, medical centres and hospitals were the safest places to give birth and they did not support home birth (Davis-Floyd et al, 2020). The World Health Organization's policy is that ‘women can choose to give birth at home if they have low-risk pregnancies, receive the appropriate level of care, and if problems arise, programmes arrange for emergency transfer to a maternity unit with appropriate personnel/equipment’ (Daviss et al, 2021). Even in low-risk pregnancies, unexpected events may occur and birth planning should include a multidisciplinary team (Hadebe et al, 2021).

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Birth experience
Couples
COVID-19 pandemic
Home birth
Qualitative study