Bréart ‐ Belgium 1992.

Methods	RCT
Participants	3 trials are reported separately in 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 Dates of study: not clear, trials ended in 1992 Funding: not clear ‐ "European Community concerted action". Conflicts of interest: Not reported.
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 of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	No information provided about blinding of participants or personnel, but blinding of participants and personnel is not possible
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No information provided about blinding of outcome assessors
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