BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to evaluate prenatal to postnatal changes in first-time parents' physical and mental health, and to describe social and health predictors of parents' postpartum health. METHODS This prospective study surveyed 261 expectant fathers and mothers during pregnancy and again at 6 months' postpartum regarding their health, partner, and work characteristics. P...

Background Regional, national and global goals for improving maternal and newborn health outcomes focus on skilled care during labor and childbirth. The purpose of this study was to assess competence of midwives in providing care during labor, childbirth and immediate postpartum period in public hospitals and health centers located in Amhara Region, Ethiopia

During a discussion in the early part of the present session, at the Westminster Medical Society, when a paper was read by Professor Murphy, advocating the use of chloroform in midwifery, Dr. Webster, according to the reports published in the medical journals, mentioned three cases of insanity supervening after the employment of the above powerful agent during childbirth; to which he afterwards...

OBJECTIVES To calculate age adjusted mortality ratios for suicide by women in the first year after childbirth and during pregnancy, and to identify characteristics of postnatal suicide in childbearing women. DESIGN Retrospective study based on population data for England and Wales from 1973 to 1984. SUBJECTS Women aged 15-44 who committed suicide in the year after childbirth or during pregn...

BACKGROUND Skilled attendance at childbirth is crucial for decreasing maternal and neonatal mortality, yet many women in low- and middle-income countries deliver outside of health facilities, without skilled help. The main conceptual framework in this field implicitly looks at home births with complications. We expand this to include "preventive" facility delivery for uncomplicated childbirth, ...

BACKGROUND Raising awareness of women on danger signs of pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period is crucial for safe motherhood. In Ethiopia, a country where maternal morbidity and mortality is high little is known about knowledge level of pregnant women on obstetric danger signs. The objective of this study was to assess pregnant women's knowledge about obstetric danger signs in Aleta ...

In seventeenth-century Rome a popular financial scheme made it crucial to establish if pregnancy or childbirth had caused a woman's death. Courts sought medical advice, and this prompted physicians to reconsider the issues. Their disagreements provide historians with evidence from which to reassess received views of early modern doctors' involvement with birthing bodies. Among others, Paolo Zac...

BACKGROUND Maternal mortality remains a major global public health concern despite many international efforts. Facility-based childbirth increases access to appropriate skilled attendance and emergency obstetric care services as the vast majority of obstetric complications occur during delivery. The purpose of the study was to determine the proportion of facility delivery and assess factors inf...

A male companion at antenatal care is unusual and spousal participation during labor and delivery in Nigeria is poor. This can be attributed to amongst other things the beliefs that labor is exclusively a women affair. Although there are few studies about male involvement in maternity care in Nigeria, no review has been conducted regarding spousal participation in labor and delivery. Therefore,...

WTi he questions "What is authoritative knowledge in the obstetric setting?"; "Who possesses the information on which action is based?"; and, more importantly, "Who should make the decisions in the birth place?" are the topic of this remarkable series of articles. It is commonly accepted that, as a practicing obstetrician in the United States, I am an authority in the realm of birth. I have tra...