Methods
Design
A two phase design was used.The first stage of the interview
survey,described in Box 1 as the Phase 1 survey,was designed to
ascertain women's views of the care available to them and the
choices they made before the centr eopened in January 2008.It
started in March 2007 and antenatal interviews ended in September 2007. Postnatal interviews took place from June 2007 to March
2008. The second survey,described as Phase 2 in Box1, was
undertaken in late 2008 and 2009 after the birth centre opened in
order to assess its impact.This left a seven month gap after the
birth centre opened to give it time to become established. Thedata
from the two surveys were then compared to assess the impact of
the birth centre on women in the population.