The women’s emotions about experience of vaginal birth based on the metaphors: A phenomenological study

Context: Birth is a physiological and multidimensional process with physical, psychological, and social aspects. Therefore, it needs to be addressed in all aspects. Today, metaphors are used to render multidimensional concepts more understandable.

Aim: To determine the women’s emotions about the experience of normal childbirth based on the metaphors.

Setting and Design: A phenomenological study on postpartum women who gave vaginal birth at a state hospital in Turkey in 2019–2020.

Materials and Methods: The purposive sampling was employed until data saturation. Data were collected with a descriptive characteristic form and an individual semi‑structured interview with 31 women who gave a vaginal birth.

Statistical Analysis Used: The content analysis defined by Graneheim and Lundman was used in the analysis of the data.

Results: Three different themes emerged from the interviews: metaphors reflecting positive emotions, metaphors reflecting complex emotions, and metaphors reflecting negative emotions.

Conclusions: Extracted metaphors in this study showed that positive and negative childbirth experiences may affect women’s emotions about childbirth process. It was determined that received antenatal education was effective on women’s positive or negative perception of the birth process. Hence, providing the information for pregnant women in the prenatal period may be a helpful factor in the development of positive metaphors.