Maternity care involving a midwife as the main care provider during pregnancy and labour leads to better outcomes for most women, according to a new study involving Irish researchers.

They say the study findings should be used to inform future maternity care policy in Ireland.

The research found that women who received continued care through pregnancy and birth from a small group of midwives were less likely to have pre-term births and needed fewer medical interventions during labour and birth than when they were under the care of various obstetric doctors, GPs and midwives.

"In midwife-led care, there is an emphasis on normality, continuity of care and being cared for by a known, trusted midwife during labour, " the researchers stressed.

"Midwife-led continuity of care, unlike medical care mainly led by an obstetrician or a GP, is provided in a multidisciplinary network of consultation and referral with other care provider," they said.

It also contrasts with with shared-care, where responsibility is shared between different maternity healthcare staff.

"There has been some debate about whether the midwife-led model of care is more effective, " the authors of the study point out.

The researchers looked at statistics from from 13 studies involving a total of 16,242 women.

When midwives were the main providers of care throughout pregnancy and labour, it was found, women were less likely to give birth before 37 weeks or lose their babies before 24 weeks.

"Women were happier with the care they received, had fewer epidurals, fewer assisted births, and fewer episiotomies. In addition, women who received midwife-led care were no more likely to have a caesarean birth, but they were in labour for about half an hour longer on average," according to the researchers.

The research was carried out by from the School of Nursing and Midwifery in NUI Galway, working with with Sheffield Hallam Universit, and the University of Warwick in the UK, and led by Dr Jane Sandall of the Division of Women's Health at King's College London.

Professor Declan Devane of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at NUI Galway said:"this work has important policy implications and provides high quality evidence of the benefits for women and their infants of midwife-led models of care supported by appropriate multi-professional referral. Other countries are using this to inform their maternity care policy and Ireland should do likewise."

The study is publisned in The Cochrane Library.