Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Obstet Gynecol. Jan 18, 2025; 14(1): 102334
Published online Jan 18, 2025. doi: 10.5317/wjog.v14.i1.102334
Prevalence of fear of childbirth, its risk factors and birth outcomes in Australian multiparous women
Rui-Xin Li, Farnoosh Asgharvahedi, Marjan Khajehei
Rui-Xin Li, Department of Women’s and Newborn Health, Westmead Hospital, Sydney 2000, New South Wales, Australia
Farnoosh Asgharvahedi, Marjan Khajehei, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Sydney 2000, New South Wales, Australia
Marjan Khajehei, Department of Women’s and Newborn Health, Westmead Hospital, Westmead 2145, Australia
Marjan Khajehei, Westemad Clinical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney 2000, New South Wales, Australia
Marjan Khajehei, School of Women’s and Children's Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2000, New South Wales, Australia
Author contributions: Khajehei M designed the overall concept of the research, conducted data analysis; Khajehei M and Asgharvahedi F contributed to the ethics preparation, submission and approval; Li RX and Asgharvahedi F contributed to data collection; Li RX and Khajehei M wrote the draft of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript before submission.
Institutional review board statement: This study received full ethical approval from Western Sydney Local Health District Human Research Ethics Committee prior to its commencement (HREC Ref: 2019/ETH09781).
Informed consent statement: The women signed the written consent forms before participating in the study. No identifiable data have been presented. The study adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki for the recruitment of human participants, study conduct and dissemination of results.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
CONSORT 2010 statement: The authors have read the CONSORT 2010 statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CONSORT 2010 statement.
Data sharing statement: Statistical code and dataset are available from the corresponding author at Marjan.khajehei@health.nsw.gov.au.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Marjan Khajehei, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Women’s and Newborn Health, Westmead Hospital, Room 3042, Westmead 2145, Australia. marjan.khajehei@health.nsw.gov.au
Received: October 15, 2024
Revised: December 18, 2024
Accepted: January 9, 2025
Published online: January 18, 2025
Processing time: 93 Days and 22.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: High-severe levels of fear of childbirth are common in pregnant multiparous women, are associated with several demographics and psychosocial factors and can affect birth outcomes. It is essential to develop customized maternity care and prenatal education programs in maternity facilities. To empower and support women and improve perinatal outcomes, their unique needs must be recognized, and assistance in coping with fear and anxiety must be made available in a way that contributes to a positive pregnancy experience.