Decisions around vaccination

‘We can't change the past but this vaccine will change people's futures’ These were the words of Kelly Mellor, whose daughter contracted meningococcal disease when she was 11 months old, quoted in a...

Handwashing and infections

In May 1847, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818–1865) showed by experiment that handwashing could prevent infections (Noakes et al, 2008) He instigated a hand-washing regime at the maternity clinic of the...

The ethics surrounding older mothers

In May 2015 a 65-year-old German single mother of 13, Annegret Raunigk, gave birth to quads One might have thought that this qualified Ms Raunigk as the world's oldest mother, but a BBC News report...

‘What's it like being a male midwife?’

Early intervention programmes for mental health from the NSPCC: Part 2

Early interventions for antenatal mental health difficulties Midwives have a critical role to play in not only identifying women with mental health difficulties but also in referring them on to...

Antenatal screening and early-intervention: A mental health update from the NSPCC

For both mothers and fathers, pregnancy and the birth of a baby are periods of transition and changing roles, and it is a life-stage that is widely acknowledged as a time of heightened stress for new...

The ethics behind caesarean section

The World Health Organization recommends that the ideal rate for caesarean sections should be between 10 and 15% However, caesarean sections have become increasingly common in both developed and...

Delayed cord clamping: The new norm

I used to think that delayed (or ‘deferred’, as is now the preferred term, in order to avoid any suggestion of suboptimal care) cord clamping was a waste of time, and more likely to cause harm than...

Mitochondrial donation

In early February 2015, MPs voted to amend the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act to permit mitochondrial donation (Gallagher, 2015) On 24 February, the House of Lords approved the amendment,...

The future of supervision

There will be surprise and shock among UK midwives following the Nursing and Midwifery Council's decision that statutory supervision of midwives should no longer be part of its legal framework (NMC,...

The new Code and what it means for midwives

The current Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2008)Code was published close to 7 years ago This not only predated the reforms following the ‘liberation of the NHS' (Department of Health, 2010),...

Empowering families to make informed choices about sleep safety

In December 2014, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) issued updated recommendations for health professionals on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and co-sleeping (sleeping...