OBJECTIVE In this study the changes in attitude of midwives towards their work following completion of the Maternal Care Manual of the Perinatal Education Programme (PEP), were determined. METHOD A prospective, controlled trial was performed in a study, and two control towns in a region where PEP had not previously been used. All midwives caring for pregnant women in the three towns were incl...

OBJECTIVE to research the role of midwives in Australia from the perspectives of women and midwives. This study was part of a commissioned national research project to articulate the scope of practice of Australian midwives and to develop national competency standards to assist midwives to deliver safe and competent midwifery care. DESIGN a multi-method approach with qualitative data collecte...

Purpose: To further develop an ergonomic birthing support for increasing comfortable postures for midwives and mothers during deliveries. Methods and Results: First, the prototype of the birthing support and six birthing postures were tested with 8 midwives, 2 physicians, and 10 pregnant women in the last month of their pregnancy using visual analogue scales (VASs) and the System Usability Scal...

INTRODUCTION In Ghana, the provision of postabortion care (PAC) by trained midwives is critical to the efficient and cost-effective reduction of unsafe abortion morbidity and mortality. METHODS We performed a secondary analysis of provider data from a representative sample of Ghanaian health facilities in order to consider the determinants of PAC provision among both physicians and midwives. ...

BACKGROUND Anemia in pregnancy remains a major problem in Indonesia over the past decade. Early detection of anaemia in pregnancy is one of the components which is unsuccessfully implemented by nurse-midwives. This study aims to explore nurse-midwives' experiences in managing pregnant women with anaemia in Public Health Centres. METHODS We conducted a qualitative study with semi-structured fa...

Background: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is widely used by women and midwives in maternity care despite the lack of strong evidence for safety or efficacy. The purpose of this research was to investigate how midwives in primary midwifery care practice in two countries use CAM. Methods: A pre-tested survey was administered to all registered midwives (265) in two provinces of Cana...

INTRODUCTION Over the last decade, planned home births in the United States (US) have increased, and have been associated with increased neonatal mortality and other morbidities. In a previous study we reported that neonatal mortality is increased in planned home births but we did not perform an analysis for the presence of professional certification status. PURPOSE The objective of this stud...

OBJECTIVE the aim of the study was to ascertain the attitudes of Swedish midwives towards management of very preterm labour and birth and to compare the attitudes of midwives at university hospitals with those at general hospitals. DESIGN this cross-sectional descriptive and comparative study used an anonymous self-administrated questionnaire for data collection. Descriptive and analytic stat...

BACKGROUND In the Netherlands, prenatal screening follows an opting in system and comprises two non-invasive tests: the combined test to screen for trisomy 21 at 12 weeks of gestation and the fetal anomaly scan to detect structural anomalies at 20 weeks. Midwives counsel about prenatal screening tests for congenital anomalies and they are increasingly having to counsel women from religious back...

OBJECTIVE to explore, in-depth, the views of midwives working in maternity services about birth setting, models of care and philosophy of care. DESIGN an Appreciative Inquiry approach was adopted utilising focus group interviews as the method of data collection. SETTING 15 focus group interviews were conducted at 14 sites in England. PARTICIPANTS a purposive sample of 120 midwives and six...