The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of empathy training given to midwives on mothers’ birth perception and their satisfaction with midwives. The type of the study is experimental. The population was composed of mothers who gave vaginal delivery and the sample was composed of 222 mothers determined with power analysis. The mothers giving birth with the help of midwives were included. A-32- hour empathy training with didactic lectures, creative drama and psychodrama techniques was given to midwives as an intervention in the study. The data was collected in three phases: the mothers giving birth before midwives’ empathy training (BMET), right after midwives’ empathy training (RAMET) and 8 weeks later after midwives’ empathy training (8WLAMET) with a questionnaire and were analyzed with Chi-square tests. In this study, The mother’s satisfaction with midwives was 36.5% in BMET, 81.1% in RAMET and 75.7% in 8WLAMET (p<0.05). The key mother’s satisfaction statements with midwives were as follows: “smiling-compassionate”, “understanding”, “reassuring”, “encouraging and motivating”. The mother’s dissatisfaction statements with midwives were as follows: "poorly attentive, effective listeners and informative”, “judgmental and embarrassing”, “fierce facial expressions”. The intergroup statistical comparison showed that the expressions showing mother’s dissatisfaction was found higher in those who gave birth before midwives’ empathy training. Rates of mothers’ perception that labor was “easy” were 8.1% in BMET, 21.6% in RAMET and 8WLAMET (p<0.05). These findings of the study demonstrated that empathy training given to midwives had a positive effect on mothers’ birth perceptions and their satisfaction with midwife.

Key Words: Empathy training, labor perception, mother’s satisfaction, midwives, vaginal delivery