Midwifery
-
the aim of this paper is to identify the core attributes of the experience of labour and birth. ⋯ practitioners and researchers have already identified the diversity and complexity of women's experiences during labour and birth. The importance of the identified attributes also requires organisational and policy development within the context of a cultural environment that acknowledges this diversity.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
'Soothing the ring of fire': Australian women's and midwives' experiences of using perineal warm packs in the second stage of labour.
to determine women's and midwives' experiences of using perineal warm packs in the second stage of labour. ⋯ perineal warm packs should be incorporated into second stage pain relief options available to women during childbirth.
-
Comparative Study
Epidural analgesia: breast-feeding success and related factors.
to compare the early breast-feeding behaviours of full-term newborns whose mothers had received epidural analgesia (EDA) during an uncomplicated labour, with a group of newborns whose mothers had not received EDA. ⋯ the study shows that EDA is associated with impaired spontaneous breast feeding including breast feeding at discharge from the hospital. Further studies are needed on the effects of EDA on short- and long-term breast-feeding outcomes.
-
to gain insight into the association between satisfaction with childbirth and place of birth, in the context of two maternity-care systems, in Belgium and the Netherlands. The Belgian and Dutch societies have many similarities but differ in the organisation of maternity care. The Dutch way of giving birth is well known for its high percentage of home births and its low medical intervention rate. In contrast, home births in Belgium are uncommon and the medical model is taken for granted. ⋯ medicalisation critics may be right about the iatrogenic effects of the medical approach on an individual level, but other social forces operate on the level of maternity-care systems.
-
to describe women's lived experience of fear of childbirth. ⋯ pregnant women who fear childbirth are an exposed group in need of much support during pregnancy and childbirth. The encounter between the woman and the midwife can be a way of breaking down the feeling of loneliness and restoring the woman's trust in herself as a childbearing woman.