Neuraxial analgesia is effective and widely used during labour, but little is known about maternal satisfaction with its use. Our objectives were to assess the frequency of incomplete maternal satisfaction with neuraxial labour analgesia and its predictors.

We extracted data from the 2016 National Perinatal Survey, a cross-sectional population-based study including all births during one week in all French maternity units. This analysis included all women who attempted vaginal delivery with neuraxial analgesia. Maternal satisfaction with analgesia was assessed by a 4-point Likert scale during a postpartum interview. Incomplete satisfaction grouped together women who were fairly, not sufficiently and not at all satisfied. We performed generalised estimating equations analyses adjusted for sociodemographic, obstetric, anaesthetic, and organisational characteristics to compare women with incomplete satisfaction to those completely satisfied.

Among the 8538 women included, 35.2% were incompletely satisfied with their neuraxial analgesia. The odds of incomplete satisfaction were higher among women who reported a prenatal preference not to use neuraxial analgesia but subsequently did (adjusted odds ratio 1.21; 95% confidence interval 1.05–1.39) and among those who did not use patient-controlled neuraxial analgesia (1.20; 1.07–1.34); the odds were lower among women who used combined spinal epidural analgesia (0.53; 0.28−0.99) than among those with epidural analgesia.

Incomplete maternal satisfaction with neuraxial analgesia is a frequent concern in France. Increasing the use of patient-controlled neuraxial analgesia and combined spinal-epidural analgesia, as well as consistency between prenatal preference and actual use of neuraxial analgesia may improve maternal satisfaction.