New routes to parenthood

Under the Gender Recognition Act 2004, an application for a gender recognition certificate must be granted if a Gender Recognition Panel decides that the applicant has—or has had—gender dysphoria; has...

Pre-registration midwifery education: is ‘cleverness’ the ‘7th C’?

Employers and service users expect midwifery graduates' values and behaviours to align with the values of the NHS Constitution (Department of Health, 2015), with approved education institutions...

Restorative clinical supervision: a reflection

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) holds the overall responsibility for regulation of midwives Following the removal of statutory supervision in 2017, a new model of employer-led supervision,...

An evidence-based toolkit to support grading of pre-registration midwifery practice

It is well documented (Heaslip and Scammell, 2012; Bennett and McGowan, 2014) that grading practice is not an easy task and can be open to subjectivity, ambiguity, confusion and grade inflation...

The effect of a breastfeeding educational workshop on clinicians' knowledge, attitudes and practices

Breastfeeding is an important health promotion strategy that has widely accepted and documented benefits for mothers, infants, and society (Wieczorek et al, 2010; Ahluwalia et al, 2012; Kuyper et al,...

Maternal and paternal expectations of antenatal education across the transition to parenthood

Supporting parents-to-be through antenatal education classes has been recognised as an important prevention and intervention strategy (Department of Health, 2011)

Midwives' perceptions of their role in mode of birth decisions

Midwives play an important role in the journey of women in labour, from conception to birth and beyond It is acknowledged globally that midwives are critical care providers of pregnant women and are...

What enables or prevents women with depressive symptoms seeking help in the postnatal period?

Up to 20% of women experience a mental health problem in the perinatal period, (the period spanning conception to 1 year after birth) (Bauer et al, 2014) The immediate and long-term costs of perinatal...

HPV during pregnancy

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is an organism that is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact and frequently by vaginal, anal or oral sex The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)...

The award winners 2019

Claiming damages for psychiatric injury during childbirth

A previous article in this series recounted a court case (RE and others v Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust [2017]) in which a mother successfully sued for damages because she had...

Saving babies' lives stillbirth summit

Given the launch of the NHS Long Term Plan, which committed to expanding the Saving Babies' Lives Care Bundle (SBLCB), and the Government's target to halve the rates of stillbirth by 2025, this...