69 Regional variations in childbirth interventions and their correlations a correlation of rho ≥ 0.60 or ≤ - 0.60 was considered strong (31). Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS Statistics 22 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). Results Overall variation The total number of women in this study was 614,730. The number of women in midwife- or obstetrician-led care at the onset of labour and at the time of birth, for nulliparous and multiparous women separately, are presented in fig 1. Maternal characteristics have previously been published (1). Fig 2 shows that the largest regional variations for the use of episiotomy and postpartum administration of oxytocin, were found in women who received midwife-led care at the time of birth. Adjustments for maternal age, ethnic background, socioeconomic position and the degree of urbanisation did not lead to substantial changes in regional variation. Therefore, we have shown the adjusted ORs only in the supplementary tables. Lower rates of episiotomy and postpartum administration of oxytocin were found in regions where home births were more common (rho = - 0.60 and - 0.79, respectively; S4 Table). 3
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