A prospective study was undertaken at Strasbourg of the assessment of the patients of the techniques used by the obstetric team and of the general atmosphere in which labour and delivery took place. A questionnair of 115 items was analysed by computer using a Pastis-Pascal programme (see attached). The first results, concerning the analysis of 100 cases and taking into account approximately ten variables, gave the following findings: -the intolerable pain factor is related to the period of dilatation; -the analgesic or amnesic factor in the mother influences the satisfaction she experiences in relation to her child; -demand for epidural anaesthesia appeared the same, whether the woman had been prepared by a psychoprophylactic method or not; -psychoprophylactic preparation would not appear to influence the assessment of pain; -women having an epidural anaesthetic never considered their labour to have been intolerable. Discriminant analysis with study of correlations is not possible at present. Given the number of variables to be considered, the population analysed is inadequate. A multicentre study would improve the performance of this research. Our questionnaire is available to any teams who might wish to use it.