Bmc Pregnancy Childb
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Bmc Pregnancy Childb · Jan 2012
UK Breastfeeding Helpline support: An investigation of influences upon satisfaction.
Helpline services have become an increasingly popular mode of providing community access to information and expert information and advice in the health and welfare sector. This paper reports on data collected from 908 callers to UK-based breastfeeding helplines. ⋯ Overall, these results highlight the value of the breastfeeding helpline(s) in terms of providing rapid, targeted, realistic, practical, and responsive support that provides affirmation and encouragement. The benefits include confidence building and callers feeling reassured and motivated to continue breastfeeding. Care needs to be taken to ensure that helpline support is easily accessible to ensure that callers and their families can access support when needed. This may require consideration of extension to a 24 hour service.
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Bmc Pregnancy Childb · Jan 2012
Silent loss and the clinical encounter: Parents' and physicians' experiences of stillbirth-a qualitative analysis.
In the United States, an estimated 70 stillbirths occur each day, on average 25,000 each year. Research into the prevalence and causes of stillbirth is ongoing, but meanwhile, many parents suffer this devastating loss, largely in silence, due to persistent stigma and taboo; and many health providers report feeling ill equipped to support grieving parents. Interventions to address bereavement after neonatal death are increasingly common in U.S. hospitals, and there is growing data on the nature of parent bereavement after a stillbirth. However, further research is needed to evaluate supportive interventions and to investigate the parent-clinician encounter during hospitalization following a stillbirth. Qualitative inquiry offers opportunities to better understand the lived experience of parents against the backdrop of clinicians' beliefs, intentions, and well-meaning efforts to support grieving parents. ⋯ Hospitals need to examine the physical environment for deliveries and, wherever possible, offer designated private areas with staff trained in stillbirth care. Training programs in obstetrics need to better address the bereavement needs of parents following a stillbirth, and research is needed to evaluate effective bereavement interventions, accounting for cultural variation. Critical improvements are also needed for mental health support beyond hospitalization. Finally, medical professionals and parents can play an important role in reversing the stigma that surrounds stillbirth.