The art and science of surgery
Lois N. Magner, Oliver J. Kim in A History of Medicine, 2017
In the ideal hospital visualized by Johann Peter Frank, the lying-in ward would be separated from the general hospital to protect new mothers from contagious diseases. The lying-in ward should have three departments: one where pregnant women could rest and prepare for the ordeal of childbirth; the second dedicated to women giving birth; and the third would have small rooms for postpartum women. Women who needed surgical intervention during childbirth should not be kept in the common labor room, Frank warned, because the sights and sounds of such “artificial births” would have a bad effect on women in labor. The lying-in ward did not need rooms for the sick, because postpartum women who became ill should be transferred to the general hospital. Hospital managers and physicians, however, considered such elaborate facilities unnecessary, irrational, and, most of all, too costly for a basically charitable enterprise.
Conclusion
Adrian Wilson in The Making of Man-Midwifery, 2018
What is more, the hospital maternity ward immersed the mother once more in a collective female space. Admittedly this was a different collectivity from that of the traditional ritual: the mother was now surrounded not by relatives, friends and neighbours she had invited to attend, but instead by uninvited strangers. Yet on the other hand, the little ad hoc society of the maternity ward was tightly focused upon childbirth: fellow-mothers were sharing the experience of giving birth, midwives and nurses were highly familiar with the needs of lying-in mothers. What bonds were forged between the women thus thrown together? What was the collective subculture of the hospital ward? How did the maternity hospital appear from the various viewpoints of the mother, the nurse and the midwife? It may be ventured that alongside the white coats, the technical apparatus, the rigid routine, the antiseptic odours of the hospital — the whole massive visibility of its medical paraphernalia — there flourished an earthy, collective, social world of shared experiences, largely forgotten after the return home, inaccessible to the outside observer, yet vital to mothers themselves in humanizing — or rather feminizing — the experience of hospital childbirth.
Understanding women’s motivations to, and experiences of, freebirthing in the UK
Hannah Dahlen, Bashi Kumar-Hazard, Virginia Schmied in Birthing Outside the System, 2020
Freebirthing is not without risk, with concerns raised regarding maternal/foetal morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization (WHO) strongly advocates that all women and babies get access to skilled care in pregnancy, childbirth and immediately after (WHO, 2010). The WHO (2010) estimate that 10–15% of pregnancies and/or birth will have obstetric complications that need clinical intervention for optimal outcomes. The risks associated with freebirthing are often perceived as similar to those associated with BBA (where a woman unintentionally births before she can access maternity professionals) (Loughney, Collis, & Dastgir, 2006). BBAs are associated with increased morbidity for the mother (e.g. excessive blood loss) or baby (e.g. failure to retain body temperature), although overall outcomes are normally good (Loughney et al., 2006). These risks, however, may not apply for women opting to freebirth as the decision is intentional, thereby indicating that women had prepared to give birth without professional support (Jackson, Dahlen, & Schmied, 2012). As such, Jackson et al. (2012) suggest, the risks associated with freebirthing cannot yet be quantified.
Emergency cesarean section among women in Robson groups one and three: A comparison study of immigrant and Norwegian women giving birth in a low-risk maternity hospital in Norway
Published in Health Care for Women International, 2019
Kjersti S. Bakken, Babill Stray-Pedersen
In Norway all pregnant women have access to free maternity care organized by the public health-care system. Baerum Hospital is located near Oslo and the maternity ward is a first-level maternity unit with no neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It is considered to be a low-risk maternity ward. The Medical Birth Registry of Norway (MBRN), in which all births in Norway are recorded, was used to identify study participants and obtain the information on pregnancy and childbirth. Statistics Norway, the Norwegian statistics bureau, provided information on the maternal and paternal country of birth, descendancy, immigrant generation, and age at immigration, which came from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, as well as information on maternal education from the Norwegian Tax Administration. A de-identified file was then sent to the research team.
Effects of the time of pregnant women’s admission to the labor ward on the labor process and interventions
Published in Health Care for Women International, 2021
Melek Balcik Colak, Hafize Ozturk Can
Basic principles of care given during labor are as follows:Every woman should be provided with one-to-one care at birth.All pregnant women should receive midwifery care and support during labor.Women should be offered birth options at home, in a midwife-led unit, or in a maternity ward. Women with a particular problem may be recommended to give birth in the maternity ward but women still have the right to choose where to give birth.Fathers’ participation in births should be ensured.Women should have normal labor and birth experience as much as possible.Medical interventions should be performed only if the mother’s and/or the baby’s health necessitates them.
Factors associated with health facility delivery in West and Central Africa: A multilevel analysis of seven countries
Published in Health Care for Women International, 2020
Comfort Z. Olorunsaiye, Larissa Brunner Huber, Sarah B. Laditka, Shanti Kulkarni, A. Suzanne Boyd
More than 70% of maternal deaths are attributable to direct obstetric complications that occur around the time of childbirth, for example, heavy bleeding following childbirth (postpartum hemorrhage) and infection (Say et al., 2014). Health facility delivery (childbirth in a healthcare facility) is an important intervention to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality from direct and indirect causes, such as preexisting health conditions like HIV and anemia (WHO, 2004). Women who have their child in a health facility have access to health professionals who are trained to handle childbirth and complications that may arise before, during, or immediately following delivery (WHO, 2004). Giving birth in a health facility also provides a critical opportunity for postnatal follow-up of women and their infants (Starrs, 1998). The WHO has recommended delivery in a healthcare facility as part of the continuum of care for pregnancy (WHO, 2004, 2014). Despite this recommendation, only about half of all births in 2015 in West and Central Africa were in a health facility, compared to 68% globally (UNICEF, 2016). Factors affecting the use of health facility delivery include geographic and socioeconomic differences (Kesterton, Cleland, Sloggett, & Ronsmans, 2010).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Birth
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- Pregnancy
- Infant
- Mother
- Vaginal Delivery
- Caesarean Section
- Hospital
- Home Birth
- Cervical Effacement