Effect of Child Birth Preparation Classes on Empowering Iranian Pregnant Women: A Systematic Review

Pregnancy is one of the most important stages of women's life, which results in significant physical, mental and social changes. Therefore, empowering pregnant women to adapt to these changes is necessary. Child birth preparation classes have been designed and conducted for this purpose. This study conducted to review the studies on the effect of child birth preparation classes on empowering Iranian pregnant women. By using keywords in 12 valid databases and the Google Scholar search engine, relevant articles published up to the beginning of April 2017 were selected and reviewed. A total number of 96 potential papers were identified. The abstracts and full-text of identified papers were screened to determine eligibility. Finally, ten studies were selected for systematic review. The results showed that there exist statistically significant difference between interventional group and control group for tiredness, daily activities, back and pelvic pain during pregnancy, postpartum depression and duration of admission. In addition, there was a significant statistical difference between the two groups in duration of active labor and the second stage of labor, Intensity of anxiety, self-efficacy, birth weight, satisfaction rate and normal vaginal delivery rate. Totally, 81.46% of women in the intervention group and 55.88% of women in the control group had normal vaginal delivery. This systematic review showed that education in child birth preparation classes were effective in empowering pregnant women. Therefore, encouraging mothers to participate actively in these educational classes and also development of these classes are recommended.