Support and Personalized Care in Alternative Midwifery Birth Units Versus Traditional Units in France: Effects on the Psychological Health of Couples and on the Health of the Mother and Child at the Age of 2 Years.

"Alternative midwifery birth units are a new model of care in France in which the midwife is the primary health care professional caring for low-risk pregnant women, as opposed to those cared for by an obstetrician-led medical team. Accordingly, alternative midwifery birth units also provide a space within which midwives can practice to their fullest potential with more professional autonomy than in a traditional obstetric setting. These birth units emphasizes care that promotes normal physiologic pregnancy and labor and supports the natural ability of women to experience birth with minimum or no routine intervention.~Alternative midwifery birth units named Filière physiologique co-exist in the same building on the same site as a hospital or host obstetric unit. In the event a laboring women needs comprehensive emergency obstetric care, she can be transferred immediatly in a conventionnal birth room"