Although fear of childbirth increased labour duration,
we found that a large proportion of women in our study
achieved a vaginal delivery independent of fear of childbirth
(89.1% of women with and 93.2% of women without
fear of childbirth). Hence, elective caesarean delivery in
women with fear of childbirth should not be routinely recommended
to prevent emergency caesarean delivery. There
was, however, a difference in the proportions of women
with a vaginal delivery without any obstetric interventions
(i.e. epidural analgesia, induction of labour, labour augmentation,
emergency caesarean delivery or instrumental
vaginal delivery) in women with and without fear of childbirth
in our study sample (25.5% versus 44.4%). When we
included women in the Akershus Birth Cohort Study with
elective caesarean delivery in the analyses, the proportions with a vaginal delivery without any obstetric interventions
were 19.1% and 35.8%, respectively.