Maternity services must meet the demands of an increasingly diverse and rapidly growing population. Recent policy changes mean midwives are taking on roles formerly performed by doctors, leaving maternity support workers to undertake many traditional midwifery tasks. This article discusses how MSWs can facilitate choice by helping midwives deliver a flexible, personalised service to childbearin...

Nepal experienced a steep decline in maternal mortality between 1996 and 2006, which had again dropped by 2010. The aim of this study was to investigate any trends in factors that may be responsible for this decline. The study was based on a secondary data analysis of maternity care services and socio-demographic variables extracted from the Nepal Demographic Health Surveys (1996, 2001, 2006 an...

INTRODUCTION This research takes up the standpoint of nurses who provide maternity care to women and families in six different communities of one geographically isolated area of British Columbia, Canada. This first report (phase one of the study) focuses on describing the complexities of rural nursing work and identifies some possibilities for change that would better support nurses in their wo...

abstract background: client satisfaction is an important indicator for assessment of the quality of care provided. detecting patients dissatisfaction and trying to find the most effective and costly services is the basic way for improvement of service quality. the purpose of this study was to determine the satisfaction level of women in the maternity care centers (hospitals) of lorestan univers...

OBJECTIVE To review trials of the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving communication between health professionals and women in maternity care. SEARCH STRATEGY The electronic databases Medline, PsycLit, The Cochrane Library, BIDS Science and Social Science Indexes, Cinahl and Embase were searched. Final searches were carried out in April 2000. INCLUSION CRITERIA Controlled trial...

OBJECTIVE This exploratory study reports on maternity clinicians' perceptions of transfer of their responsibility and accountability for patients in relation to clinical handover with particular focus transfers of care in birth suite. DESIGN A qualitative study of semistructured interviews and focus groups of maternity clinicians was undertaken in 2007. De-indentified data were transcribed an...

BACKGROUND The purpose of the study is to examine the effects and feasibility of individual physical activity (PA) counseling in maternity and child health clinics in Finland. METHODS Three clinics including both maternity and child health care signed up for the experimental (EXP) and three for the control group (CON). The participants were 132 pregnant and 92 postpartum primiparas. The nurse...

BACKGROUND The development of evidence-based guidelines is a key step in ensuring that maternity care is of a universally high standard. To influence patient care national and international guidelines need to be interpreted and implemented locally. In 2011, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists published guidelines for the management of reduced fetal movements (RFM), which can b...

BACKGROUND Maternity care reform plans have been proposed at state and national levels in Australia, but the extent to which these respond to maternity care consumers' expressed needs is unclear. This study examines open-text survey comments to identify women's unmet needs and priorities for maternity care. It is then considered whether these needs and priorities are addressed in current reform...