This website is intended for healthcare professionals
This website is intended for healthcare professionals
Women's health after childbirth is attracting a more appropriate level of consideration than it has in the past (Vanderkruik et al, 2013) The incidence and prevalence of postpartum health issues...
There is evidence that parents want information and services around pregnancy and birth to be consistent and seamless, with different agencies and departments within health care working together, and...
Experiencing childbirth as a traumatic event is a factor that has been highlighted as contributing to poorer psychological outcomes for mothers Up to 30% of women in the UK experience childbirth as a...
Anencephaly is a defect in the closure of the neural tube during the fourth week of gestation, occurring in 47/10 000 births (Collins et al, 2013) The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and...
Breastfeeding is accepted as the optimum way to nourish babies (World Health Organization (WHO), 2016), with proven health benefits for both babies and mothers (Renfrew et al, 2012; Victora et al,...
In November 2015, a study on the association between day of delivery and obstetric outcomes caught the headlines (Palmer et al, 2015). There is a risk that some of the more shockingly worded headlines...
In March 2016, teenage pregnancy data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS, 2016a) marked a huge milestone. England's under-18 conception rate is now 22.8/1000 15–17-year-old young...
Dobelli (2013) cites an experiment in which a supermarket displayed 24 flavours of jelly, which customers could taste and then buy at a discount; the next day, the experiment was repeated with six...
Over many years, my friend Sheila Kitzinger and I talked about the importance of women receiving care from one or a small group of midwives whom they could get to know and trust over time, which...
I was one of a number of staff on the Local Health Board I work for who took part in the revalidation pilot My first reaction was: ‘Goodness me! How am I going to achieve this? What exactly are they...
‘You're going to be a pioneer, aren't you?’ said my vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) midwife, Jo, at a clinic appointment when I was 36 weeks pregnant with my second baby
In October 2015, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Council gave the go-ahead to introduce revalidation for nurses and midwives across the UK The process is now a reality; our online system for...
Last year, at the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, feminist icon Germaine Greer scolded gay parents Sir Elton John and David Furnish for naming Furnish as the mother of their two sons on the...
We are all aware that there are many forthcoming changes in midwifery recommended in government policies (Dunkley-Bent, 2016). So how do midwives feel about these, and how might they cope with further...
The new National Maternity Review (NMR, 2016) for England has sparked a range of reactions. As this issue went to press, I read a comment in the New Scientist (Wilson, 2016) which is scathing in its...
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