In midwifery care we aim to provide client-centred care. This requires intensive collaboration between care givers in maternity care. The associations of midwives and obstetricians endorse in their visions the importance of extensive collaboration between both professionals.

The OptiBirth study addressed the widespread concern over rising Caesarean section rates throughout Europe, particularly routine CS following a previous CS, despite calls for increased vaginal births after Caesarean (VBAC).

Pregnant women indicate that they prefer to make their own choices regarding midwifery care and they take responsibility for their own health and the health of their baby.

The initial part of this study - a comparison between midwife-led home births and midwife-led hospital births - showed that there was a big difference in the number of interventions (assisted deliveries and caesarean sections) between low-risk births that started in midwife-led primary care and low-risk births that started in obstetric-led  secondary care. However, these kinds of studies are not yet conducted prospectively, prompting the researchers to start this multi-centre prospective cohort study.