OBJECTIVES To determine the impact of volunteer obstetricians and midwife teams on obstetric services in a rural hospital in Ethiopia. METHODS The intervention was undertaken in Mota district hospital, a rural hospital in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, which is the only hospital for 1.2 million people. Before the placement of volunteer teams it had a rudimentary basic obstetric service, no bl...

OBJECTIVE To assess the availability of obstetric institutions, the risk of unplanned delivery outside an institution and maternal morbidity in a national setting in which the number of institutions declined from 95 to 51 during 30 years. DESIGN Retrospective population-based, three cohorts and two cross-sectional analyses. SETTING Census data, Statistics Norway. The Medical Birth Registry ...

BACKGROUND The obstetric practice environment is evolving to include more laborists staffing obstetric units, with the hope of improving quality of care and provider satisfaction, yet there are scant data on the impact of a laborist care model on patient satisfaction or delivery outcomes. We sought to assess patient satisfaction after implementation of the laborist model of obstetric care in a ...

The frequency of use of commonly performed obstetric procedures to assist in vaginal delivery has been shown to vary according to characteristics of both the patient and provider, independently of clinical indications for intervention. This variation in procedure use according to “non-medical” factors is worthy of attention, as it raises the spectre of unnecessary intervention that increases th...

This paper analyzes Apgar score associated with mode of delivery for live births in São Paulo State, Brazil, 2003. Based on data from the State Data Analysis System Foundation (SEADE), logistic regression was analyzed for live births with low Apgar score (0 to 6) at the fifth minute of life per mode of delivery, adjusted for obstetric, demographic, and social factors. Birth weight, gestational ...

BACKGROUND Zambia has a high maternal mortality ratio, 398/100,000 live births. Few pregnant women access emergency obstetric care services to handle complications at childbirth. We aimed to assess the deficit in life-saving obstetric services in the rural and urban areas of Kapiri Mposhi district. METHOD A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2011 as part of the 'Response to Accountable p...

Placenta accreta is a potentially life-threatening obstetric condition that requires a multidisciplinary approach to management. The incidence of placenta accreta has increased and seems to parallel the increasing cesarean delivery rate. Women at greatest risk of placenta accreta are those who have myometrial damage caused by a previous cesarean delivery with either an anterior or posterior pla...

“THE position of woman in any civilization is an index of the advancement of that civilization; the position of woman is gauged by the care given her at the birth of her child.” Although many developments have occurred in obstetric anesthesia since this quote’s first publication in 1929, advances in the subspecialty have been complicated by medicolegal, financial, maternal, and fetal considerat...

OBJECTIVE To compare the effect of admission cardiotocography and Doppler auscultation of the fetal heart on neonatal outcome and levels of obstetric intervention in a low risk obstetric population. DESIGN Randomised controlled trial. SETTING Obstetric unit of teaching hospital PARTICIPANTS Pregnant women who had no obstetric complications that warranted continuous monitoring of fetal hea...