BACKGROUND The use of interventions in childbirth has increased the past decades. There is concern that some women might receive more interventions than they really need. For low-risk women, midwife-led birth settings may be of importance as a counterbalance towards the increasing rate of interventions. The effect of planned place of birth on interventions in the Netherlands is not yet clear. T...

Objective: To compare the experiences of women who received a new model of continuity of midwifery care with those who received standard hospital care during pregnancy, labour, birth and the postnatal period. Design: A randomised controlled trial was conducted. One thousand and eighty-nine women were randomly allocated to either the new model of care, the St George Outreach Maternity Project (S...

Continuity of care is often critical in delivering high quality health care. However, it is difficult to achieve in community health care where shift patterns and a need to minimise travelling time can reduce the scope for allocating staff to patients. Community midwifery is one example of such a challenge in the National Health Service where postnatal care typically involves a series of home v...

OBJECTIVE To understand why skilled birth attendance-an acknowledged strategy for reducing maternal deaths-has been effective in some settings but is failing in Pakistan and to demonstrate the value of a theory-driven approach to evaluating implementation of maternal healthcare interventions. DESIGN Implementation research was conducted using an institutional ethnographic approach. SETTING ...

The unique placement of midwives in the health care industry prompts renewed consideration of vicarious liability. Generally, vicarious liability is the liability of an employer for an employee's actions. A review of recent case law over the past decade shows limited case activity and indicates that the certified nurse-midwife/certified midwife (CNM/CM) roles do not create vicarious liability r...

practised in Derby, then in Stafford and in 1656 he moved to London for the better education of his children. One of his sons helped him in his practice and one of his daughters became a midwife, attending her own cases and also working with her father. This book is first and foremost a practical work for the midwife. Willughby starts by admitting that he has no new practice of midwifery, he in...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that it is possible to select a group of low risk women who can start labour in midwife-led care without having increased rates of severe adverse maternal outcomes compared to women who start labour in secondary care. DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted a nationwide cohort study in the Netherlands, using data from 223 739 women with a singleton pregnancy between 3...

OBJECTIVES To compare mode of birth and medical interventions between broadly equivalent birth settings in England and the Netherlands. METHODS Data were combined from the Birthplace study in England (from April 2008 to April 2010) and the National Perinatal Register in the Netherlands (2009). Low risk women in England planning birth at home (16,470) or in freestanding midwifery units (11,133...

BACKGROUND As a matter of routine, midwives in Sweden have spoken with women about their experiences of labour in a so-called 'postpartum consultation'. However, the possibility of offering women this kind of consultation today is reduced due to shortage of both time and resources. The aim of this study was to explore the occurrence, women's requirements of, and experiences of a postpartum cons...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effectiveness of a self help approach to smoking cessation in pregnancy. DESIGN Pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial with community midwife as the unit of randomisation. SETTING Three NHS hospital trusts in England. PARTICIPANTS 1527 women who smoked at the start of pregnancy. INTERVENTION A series of five self help booklets comprising a step by step ...