Birth
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Regional anesthesia is used for three-fourths of the deliveries in France. Epidural analgesia during labor is supposed to be available to all women at low risk. The purpose of our study was to examine how the choice of delivery without an epidural varied in this context according to women's characteristics, prenatal care, and type of maternity unit. ⋯ Unfavorable social situation and organizational factors are associated with the reported choice to give birth without epidural analgesia. This finding suggests that women are not always in a position to make a real choice. It would be useful to improve the understanding of how pregnant women define their preferences and to know how these preferences change during pregnancy and labor.