The majority of interviews in languages other than English
were in Sylheti, a dialect of Bengali, which is not a written
language. This made it impossible to follow conventional practice
of producing a written translation and then a back translation into
English. On the other hand, informants interviewed in Sylheti/
Bengali spontaneously commented that they were glad to have
had the opportunity to talk about their experiences in their own
language. In contrast, when three-way interpretation had to be
used for languages for which a bilingual interviewer was not
available, this was found to be unwieldy. This applied to only a
very small number of women, most of whom we were unable to
contact postnatally, possibly as a consequence of the high level of
mobility in the local population.
Only a quarter of the women initially choosing the birth centre
were Bangladeshi, compared with nearly two-thirds who chose
the hospital. This low initial take-up inevitably attracted adverse
comments and staff made attempts to improve it. Subsequent
audit by birth centre midwives showed that use by the Bangladeshi
population increased as the birth centre became established.
On the other hand, the proportion of women who were white, 56.0
per cent, varied markedly from the 91.6 per cent reported as white
for all freestanding midwife-led units in Birthplace (Birthplace in
England Collaborative Group, 2011). Despite this difference, the
results of the survey suggest that this form of care is well
appreciated by the ethnically diverse population of women living
in this area of East London.