Methods
We undertook 14 telephone interviews between November 2017 and June 2018 with pregnant women and recent mothers (within three years of birth) within the north of Scotland (NHS Highland and NHS Grampian). Women were invited to participate by local midwifery leads. Women who had experienced a therapeutic abortion, spontaneous abortion or stillbirth, suffered early neonatal loss, or had a baby in neonatal intensive care were not invited. Interested women contacted their midwives who passed on their details to the research team (HB, VW). Informed consent forms were emailed to participants at least 2 days before the telephone interview. Telephone interviews were used to allow women to participate at a time that suited them from their own home and to reduce travel. Ethical approval for this research was received from the Research Ethics Service in Scotland (NHS RES REC reference number 17/ES/0086).
A topic guide was developed with reference to previous qualitative research with recent mothers.13 The discussion was wide ranging; participants were asked about their experiences of maternity care, knowledge of safe pregnancy, risks related to pregnancy and general concerns that they may have regarding their choice of birthplace. The interviews were audio-recorded with the participants’ permission, and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analysed by two researchers independently (HB, VW) using an inductive thematic approach.18, 19 HB and VW developed themes and sub-themes from their independent reading of the transcripts and their discussions, and extracted themes and quotes from each transcript. The anonymised transcripts together with the themes and quotes were shared with the wider study team.