Methods	See Breart - Belgium.
Participants	See Breart - Belgium. Trial in France: n = 1320 (656 continuous support; 664 control)
Interventions	See Breart - Belgium. Fathers were allowed to be present.
Outcomes	See Breart - Belgium.
Notes	Epidural analgesia was available and it is unknown whether EFM was routine
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 was > 95%. There were some discrepancies in the total number enrolled. 2 reports show 656 in the permanent support group and 664 in the control group for a total of 1320. The table of results in 1 report shows 654 in the permanent support and 666 in control. The in-hospital questionnaire results are shown for 654 and 664 women (total 1318) but the authors state this is 95%of the sample, meaning the total is 1386. The n reported with each outcome was the one used in the data tables in this review
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All outcomes were reported.
Other bias	Low risk	No other sources of bias noted.