New graduate nurse-midwives are looking for a bridge between their education and clinical practice, whereas birth centers often have a difficult time recruiting midwives to hire. At the same time, women are seeking birth center and midwifery care in growing numbers. A well-designed fellowship program helps address all of these needs in a supported, safe way. This article describes one birth cen...

Methods: This was a prospective cohort study of women receiving care in 79 midwifery-led birth centers in 33 US states from 2007 to 2010. Data were entered into the American Association of Birth Centers Uniform Data Set after obtaining informed consent. Analysis was by intention to treat, with descriptive statistics calculated for maternal and neonatal outcomes for all women presenting to birth...

BACKGROUND An intercultural birthing house was established in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, as an intervention to reduce maternal mortality among indigenous women. This birth center, known locally as the Casa Materna, is a place where women can come to give birth with their traditional birth attendant. However, three months after opening, no woman had used the birthing house. METHODS This...

In Birth without Violence (1975), French obstetrician Frederick Leboyer [4] describes in poetic form the possible perceptions and feelings of embryos and fetuses before, during, and after birth. His work has helped to promote a gentler and more sensitive birthing method with the goal of easing the newborn?s transition from the womb [5] to the outside world. Leboyer?s birthing method influenced ...

Several cell-based biological applications in microfluidic systems require simultaneous high-throughput and individual handling of cells or other bioparticles. Available chip-based tools for contactless manipulation are designed for either high-precision handling of individual particles, or high-throughput handling of ensembles of particles. In order to simultaneously perform both, we have comb...

This paper is a progress report on studies carried out at SLAC to assess the high-gradient behavior of 11.4 GHz copper accelerator structures for future linear colliders. The structures which have been examined in the last year are a 7-cavity standing wave (SW) section and a 30-cavity traveling-wave (TW) section. Both st&tures are of the constant-impedance uniform-aperture iype with a m phase s...

BACKGROUND Child delivery in a health facility is important to reduce maternal mortality. Bypassing nearby birthing facility to deliver at a hospital is common in developing countries including Nepal. Very little is known about the extent and determinants of bypassing the birthing centres in Nepal. This study measures the status of bypassing, characteristics of bypassers and their reasons for b...

BACKGROUND The benefits of breastfeeding for improved health and developmental outcomes in mothers and their infants have been widely recognized. The purpose of the present study was to assess whether feeding modes influence maternal blood pressure at one month postpartum. METHODS The pregnancy charts of 407 women who delivered at a birthing center in rural Japan between August 1998 and Septe...