Today it is still impossible to compile a full report in German healthcare reporting concerning the provision of health care to women in the life span of pregnancy, birth, the postnatal and breastfeeding periods. The involvement of  midwives and the range of services they provide can also not currently be comprehensively represented. Correspondingly, current and future needs in terms of midwife services are not fully known.

The aim of the research project is to obtain data on the spectrum of midwife services in the state of Lower Saxony in 2007.

Data are obtained by a combination of methods: expert interviews and postal survey with n=2037 midwives in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany.

The aim of the research project is to gain an overview in relation to the available and lacking data on the provision of care by midwives and indicate potential ways in which the data might be completed, in order to be able to use it for health system research in the context of healthcare reporting.