Introduction: The updated World Health Organization guidelines from 2018 bring together new and pre-existing recommendations, which provide evidence-based and quality-assured perinatal care regardless of setting or level of care. The recommendations are presented according to the context of care to which they apply, namely antenatal care and care during labour, care in the 1st stage of labour, care in the 2nd stage of labour, care in the 3rd stage of labour, and direct care of the newborn and the woman after delivery. The term healthy pregnant woman is defined in the guidelines as pregnant women and adolescent girls free of associated diseases and without confirmed risk factors for themselves or the baby. Purpose: The aim of the thesis is to determine the compliance of perinatal practice in Slovenia with the current World Health Organization guidelines, namely in the 1st stage of labour, the 2nd stage of labour and the 3rd stage of labour. Methods: The empirical part was based on semi-structured interviews conducted in 14 Slovenian maternity hospitals. The sample consisted of 14 certified midwives employed in all 14 Slovenian maternity hospitals, who answered the interview questions according to the established practice of the institution. The interviews were recorded and later transcribed for thematic and content analysis with categorisation. Results: The results were analysed on the basis of a semi-structured interview. A total of 24 variables were studied in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stage of labour. We found that when viewed together, 7 variables out of 24 were compliant with the World Health Organization guidelines, 11 variables out of 24 were partially compliant and 6 variables out of 24 were non-compliant with the guidelines. Discussion and conclusion: We can conclude that the delivery practices of Slovenian maternity hospitals in the 1st stage of labour, the 2nd stage of labour and the 3rd stage of labour in the highest proportion (45.8%) are partially compliant with the World Health Organization guidelines. While some maternity hospitals follow the guidelines almost completely, we still perceived a lot of room for improvement in some maternity hospitals.
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