Introduction. Childbirth is considered a physiological optimum manner of termination of the pregnancy for both mother and child. Despite this increasingly common method of solution becomes caesarean section. The percentage of caesarean sections in recent years in Poland went to 50%. Aim. The aim at the study was investigate midwife’s preferences concerning the mode of delivery. Material and methods. The study was voluntary and consisted of 100 midwives working in 3 hospitals in the city of Rzeszow. They were interviewed using a self-devised questionnaire and the collected data was analysed. Results. Natural childbirth is the optimal route to complete a pregnancy for 89% of midwives. In this group, 71% of respondents delivered in this way. Almost 64% of respondents who were in favour of operational delivery, were midwives with a medical history of an emergency cesarean section and 18.18% after an elective caesarean section. 54.55% of midwives who want to avoid labour pain and 45.45% of women taking into account the welfare of their child prefer caesarean section. Conclusions. Studed midwives are aware of the benefits of natural birth for them and the newborn. A worrying is that there are midwives in the study group who believe that caesarean section is a good way to avoid labor pain and is better for the child than vaginal birth.

Key words: midwife, route of delivery, natural childbirth, caesarean section.