Journal profile · NURSING-OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY
Women and Birth
ISSN 1871-5192 · eISSN 1878-1799 · Elsevier BV · NETHERLANDS
Women and Birth: CAS Zone 2 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 3.45; hybrid open access; APC about USD 3,613; median 110 days to acceptance (99 articles, last 24 months); 255 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE, SSCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Women and Birth is published by Elsevier BV and is in Zone 2 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions, Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum and Global Maternal and Child Health, together about 51.8% of its articles. Its main subfields are Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Journal of the Australian College of Midwives (ACM) Women and Birth is the official journal of the Australian College of Midwives. It is a midwifery journal that publishes on all matters relating to pregnancy, birth, and the first six weeks post-partum. All papers must draw from, and contribute to, the relevant contemporary research, policy and/or theoretical literature. We focus on primary research papers, systematic reviews and research-informed and critiqued discussion papers. We are particularly interested in the impact to the midwifes and/or midwifery on these topic areas.Our Editorial Board is multi-national and we welcome papers from all over the world. All papers should reflect our global perspective and reach. Articles are double blind peer-reviewed by experts in the field of the submitted work.Our woman-centred focus is inclusive of the partner, wider family, fetus and newborn, and covers both healthy and complex pregnancies and births. We recognise that individuals have diverse gender identities. Terms such as pregnant person, childbearing people and parent can be used to avoid gendering birth, and those who give birth, as feminine. However, because women are also marginalised and oppressed in most places around the world, we support use of the terms woman, mother or maternity. When we use these words, it is not meant to exclude those who give birth and do not identify as women. The journal seeks papers that take a woman-centred focus on midwifery practice, research, theory, education, management and leadership, maternity service provision, maternal and newborn health, respectful maternity care, breastfeeding, primary health care and relevant aspects of psychology, sociology, human rights and health economics. We welcome papers from all professional disciplines that are relevant to midwifery practice and the scope of the journal.Women and Birth cannot consider papers that have a primary focus on gynaecological surgery, gynaecological oncology, surgical techniques (e.g. Caesarean section surgical approaches), pharmacological studies unless directly relevant to midwifery practice, infertility research or detailed IVF techniques or success rates. We also do not consider case reports or papers that are about the development of survey tools through validation studies. Women and Birth does not consider animal studies.Our key readers are midwives, maternity care and neonatal nurses, maternity service managers, providers and users, obstetricians, neonatologists, health sociologists and economists, psychologists with an interest in maternal and infant research and policy makers and researchers from all these areas.The journal is indexed in PubMed, MEDLINE, Thomson Reuters, Scopus and CINAHL.The journal is available online to ACM members and is available by separate subscription.Open Access - the journal offers authors the option of making their article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect platform. Authors can only make this choice after receiving notification that their article has been accepted for publication.ClinicalKey Nursing Visit our nursing resource, ClincalKey NursingTo purchase books on Midwifery or to browse our comprehensive range of Midwifery titles, please visit us at www.elsevierhealth.com.au/midwifery.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): NURSING-OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY
Editor-in-chief Caroline SEPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 2 in mainland China (about 8%); most named Australia 14, Ireland 4, Mainland China 2, United Kingdom 2, Hong Kong, China 1 (25 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Maternal and Perinatal Health InterventionsMedicine27.4%
- Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and PostpartumMedicine15.1%
- Global Maternal and Child HealthMedicine9.3%
- Breastfeeding Practices and InfluencesMedicine5.8%
- Grief, Bereavement, and Mental HealthPsychology4.8%
- Nursing education and managementNursing4.6%
- Maternal and fetal healthcareMedicine3.2%
- Global Health Workforce IssuesHealth Professions3%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Nursing | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Obstetrics & Gynecology | Zone 1 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Nursing | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Obstetrics & Gynecology | Zone 1 |
Top journal: yesReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Medicine Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Nursing | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Obstetrics & Gynecology | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIESSCIScopusLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
MEDLINEPubMedCINAHLPublisher website
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 3.45LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 3.6Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 7.7LetPub ·
- CiteScore (publisher)
- 7.7Publisher website ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 1.29LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.54LetPub ·
- h-index
- 31LetPub ·
- h-index
- 88OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 1,175OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 1.56OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 16.7%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 71.18%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 127LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 3,569 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 217 | 95 | 39 |
| 2025 | 255 | 125 | 424 |
| 2024 | 239 | 98 | 643 |
| 2023 | 234 | 100 | 1,214 |
| 2022 | 295 | 123 | 2,014 |
| 2021 | 131 | 72 | 3,327 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with PubMed · to
110 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 75 days – 154 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 7 days (99 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 120 days
- Sample
- 99 articles with submission and acceptance dates (262 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Submission to first decision
- 6 daysPublisher website ·
- First decision after review
- 68 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to acceptance
- 123 daysPublisher website ·
- Acceptance to publication
- 11 daysPublisher website ·
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewPublisher website
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Hybrid open accessLetPub
A subscription journal in which authors can pay to publish their article open access.
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAlex | EUR 2,930 / GBP 2,740 / JPY 2,350 | — | — | |
| Publisher website | USD 3,780 | — | — |
A hybrid journal charges the APC only when the author chooses open access; publishing under the subscription model is usually free.
Other charges and waivers (author guidelines)
- Colour charges
- USD 312
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare6 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- ≤ 250 words
- Keywords
- 4–6
- Reference style
- Vancouver
- First submission
- Free format: the journal's layout is not required
- Highlights
- Optional
- Graphical abstract
- Optional
Article types accepted4, with length limits
- editoriale title page, abstract, references etc. Editorials For Editorials, the maximum length is up to 2500 words, 25 references and 2 tables or figures. Letters to the…main text ≤ 2,500 words · references ≤ 25
- letters to the editorLetters to the Editor referring to a recent Women and Birth article are encouraged up to 3 months after the appearance of a published paper. Text is limited to …main text ≤ 350 words · references ≤ 5
- research articleseek permission of the Editor-in-Chief. Research articles For primary research articles, the maximum length up to 5000 words, 50 references, and 6 tables or fig…main text ≤ 5,000 words
- review articlee title page, abstract, references etc. Review articles (systematic reviews, meta-analyses, meta syntheses) For review articles, the maximum length up to 5000 w…main text ≤ 5,000 words · references ≤ 70
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAI use, Authorship, Conflicts of interest, Data availability, Publication ethics, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review, Preprints
- AI use Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing
Authors must declare the use of generative AI tools in the manuscript preparation process upon submission of the paper.Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (“AI tools”) have been rapidly adopted in research and scholarly publishing, offering significant benefits while requiring clear standards for responsible and transparent use.Authors preparing a manuscript for this journal may use AI tool…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Authorship Author contributions
For transparency, we encourage corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT roles. The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor's specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administratio…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Conflicts of interest Conflict of Interest
All authors must disclose, in the covering letter to the editor and on the title page of the manuscript, any actual or potential conflict of interest, including financial and personal relationships with people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, co…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability
Encourages citing underlying datasets Model summary
This journal encourages you to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics
Follows COPE guidelines Model summary
The journal follows the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and requests authors to familiarise themselves with these guidelines at: http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Copyright
Copyright transfer to Australian College of Midwives Model summary
Papers accepted for publication become the copyright of the Australian College of Midwives, and authors will be asked to sign a transfer of copyright form, on receipt of the accepted manuscript by Elsevier. This enables the Publisher to administer Copyright on behalf of the Authors and the College, whilst allowing the continued use of the material by the Author for Scholarly communication.Author r…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Open access
Please visit our Open Access page for more information about open access publishing in this journal.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Double-Blind Peer Review Process
Double anonymized review process Model summary
Editors review all abstracts and using a triage-type checklist will make a rapid decision about whether the article is suitable for peer review in this journal. The overall rejection rate is approximately 60% and the majority of these happen at the rapid decision stage. This rapid decision is of benefit for authors because the author can consider whether to submit elsewhere without undue delay. Th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprint references
Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the nam…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Country or region
- NETHERLANDS
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 1871-5192
- Electronic ISSN
- 1878-1799
- Society / sponsor
- Australian College of Midwives
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Women and Birth
What CAS zone is Women and Birth in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Women and Birth is in Zone 2 of Medicine, and in Zone 1 of the minor category Nursing / Obstetrics & Gynecology. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 2 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Women and Birth?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 3.45; CiteScore 7.7, h-index 88.
How long does peer review take at Women and Birth?
Based on the dates recorded on 99 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 110 days (interquartile range 75–154 days). Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of Women and Birth?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: ≤ 250 words; Keywords: 4–6; Reference style: Vancouver; First submission: Free format: the journal's layout is not required; Highlights: Optional; Graphical abstract: Optional. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Women and Birth based?
Of the 25 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 2 (about 8%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are Australia (14), Ireland (4) and Mainland China (2). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Women and Birth?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Women and Birth is indexed in SCIE, SSCI and Scopus. The journal's website also lists MEDLINE, PubMed and CINAHL; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Women and Birth open access, and what is the APC?
Women and Birth is a hybrid journal. For open-access publication: APC about USD 3,613.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .