Methods	RCT.
Participants	3 trials are reported separately, within 1 publication. Participants were nulliparous, healthy, in spontaneous labour, term, with singleton vertex presentations. Trial in Belgium: n = 264 (133 permanent support; 131 control)
Interventions	Permanent presence of a midwife compared to varying degrees of presence. Fathers were allowed to be present
Outcomes	Oxytocin, epidural analgesia, labour length, mode of birth, Apgar scores, mothers’ views of their experiences
Notes	Epidural analgesia was available and it is not known whether EFM was used routinely
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors’ judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Women were ‘randomly assigned’. The envelopes were prepared by the co-ordinating centre. No mention of the process of sequence generation
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Sealed envelopes. No mention if they were opaque or consecutively numbered. The process of how the envelopes were opened was not described
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No details given.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Completion rate for medical record data and in-hospital questionnaire were 99.2% and 91.0% respectively
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All outcomes were reported.
Other bias	Low risk	No other sources of bias noted.