OBJECTIVES To describe the relationship between maternal age and intrapartum outcomes in 'low-risk' women; and to evaluate whether the relationship between maternal age and intrapartum interventions and adverse outcomes differs by planned place of birth. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Obstetric units (OUs), midwifery units and planned home births in England. PARTICIPANTS 63 371 ...

BACKGROUND A major change in the organisation of maternity care in the Netherlands is under consideration, going from an echelon system where midwives provide primary care in the community and refer to obstetricians for secondary and tertiary care, to a more integrated maternity care system involving midwives and obstetricians at all care levels. Student midwives are the future maternity care p...

OBJECTIVE To assess the effect of universal screening and administration of intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis to prevent early-onset neonatal GBS sepsis at a private tertiary care hospital since issuance of the 2002 CDC guidelines for preventing perinatal GBS disease. METHODS Retrospective analysis of women delivering between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2004 at a private tertiary care h...

Group B streptococcus is a leading cause of serious neonatal infection. Most neonatal GBS infections can be prevented through the use of intrapartum antimicrobial prophylaxis in women who are at increased risk for transmitting the infection to their newborns. However, despite clinical trials that demonstrate the effectiveness of intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis, prevention strategies have not...

The need to improve health services to HIV-positive women requires a specific focus on limiting mother-to-child transmission. Vertical transmission most often takes place during the intrapartum period; hence, it is essential to alert midwives to what constitutes safe or risky intrapartum practices. Midwives in the southern region of the North West Province of South Africa were surveyed for thei...

Supportive care and childbirth have been connected for all of recorded history. The impact of supportive care on health outcomes, however, has only been investigated over the last few decades. Research provides powerful evidence of improved outcomes for mothers and babies when mothers are supported in labor. These outcomes include, but are not limited to, lower rates of analgesia and anesthesia...

BACKGROUND High quality care is crucial in ensuring that women and newborns receive interventions that may prevent and treat birth-related complications. As facility deliveries increase in developing countries, there are concerns about service quality. Observation is the gold standard for clinical quality assessment, but existing observation-based measures of obstetric quality of care are lengt...

OBJECTIVE to explore midwives' perception of intrapartum risk for healthy nulliparous women in spontaneous labour at term of a healthy singleton pregnancy, in the Belgian Flanders, and to compare these results with those of a previous study undertaken in England. DESIGN survey of the care midwives would advocate and their perception of intrapartum risk using a standardised scenario. This stud...

Intrapartum perinatal mortality, the deaths that occur during the period around birth, is a major problem in developing countries accounting for more than one million stillbirths and a similar number of neonatal deaths worldwide each year [1,2]. A number of authors have emphasized that the time encompassing labor and the 24 hours after birth is the most dangerous period for both the mother and ...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the research was to assess the content and quality of the intrapartum care offered in vaginal births in Turkey, based on the example of a state hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted between January 1st, 2013 and December 31st, 2014 at Aydın Maternity and Children's Hospital. The study sample consisted of 303 women giving vaginal birt...