Objective: to gain a deeper understanding of how women who seek care at an early stage experience the latent phase of labour.
Design: a qualitative interview study using the grounded theory approach.
Setting: the study was conducted at a hospital in the southwestern part of Sweden with a range of 1600-1700 deliveries per year. The interviews took place in the women's homes two to six weeks after birth.
Participant: eighteen Swedish women, aged 22-36, who were admitted to the labour ward while they were still in the latent phase of labour.
Findings: 'Handing over responsibility' to professional caregivers emerged as the core category or the central theme in the data. The core category and five additional categories formed a conceptual model explaining what it meant to women being admitted in the early stage of labour and their experiences of the latent phase of labour. The categories, which all related to the core category, were labelled: (1) 'longing to complete the pregnancy,' (2) 'having difficulty managing the uncertainty,' (3) 'having difficulty enduring the slow progress,' (4) 'suffering from pain to no avail' and (5) 'oscillating between powerfulness and powerlessness.'
Conclusions and implications for practice: findings indicate that women being admitted to the labour ward in the latent phase of labour experienced a need for handing over responsibility for the labour, the well-being of the unborn baby, and for themselves. Midwives have an important role in assisting women with coping during the latent phase of labour, and in giving the women opportunity to hand over responsibility. This care should include validation of experienced pain and confirmation of the normality of the slow process, information and support.