Background:

Every woman giving birth has expectations. Identifying women’s expectations, wishes, needs and fears enable the health care provider(s) to work toward a common goal of safe and positive childbirth experience.

Aim:

The aim was to determine women’s preferences and needs during labor.

Design:

Analytic- cross sectional study.

Setting:

El Kasr- Aini, - Cairo- University Maternity Hospitals.

Sample:

A random sample of 400 women were recruited in the present study with the following criteria; age ranged between 20-30 years old, can read and write, primigravida, nulliparous woman with singleton low risk pregnancies, in the third trimester, up to 37 weeks of gestational age, no previous abortion and free from any medical complains.

Procedure:

Data collection took place in the antenatal clinic, each interview administrated questionnaire took a time between 10-15 minutes. Mothers completed the questionnaire in the antenatal clinics during their waiting for medical examination.

Results:

Twenty two need requirements emerged from the women's perspective. The highest ranked needs for parturient women during labor are; maintaining privacy through all procedures of 86.5%, accessibility of nurses demonstrate empathy of 67.5%, availability to ventilate and expressing fear and anxiety of 57.5%, quick response to request of 67.5%, frequent monitoring of 52.8%, accessibility of caring medical staff of 47.2% and short delivery of 52.8%.

Conclusion:

Despite good general coverage of labor care among women, there were clear variations in the type of management given to them or needed by them. This study confirms that different factors predict the multidimensionality of childbirth satisfaction.