Obstetric anal sphincter injuries: are defunctioning colostomies required?

Anatomically, a stoma is simply an opening in the body between the skin and a hollow viscus. Common types of intestinal stomas are colostomies and ileostomies. Colostomies are formed from the colon...

Beyond body mass index: a synthesis of lifestyle factors that may influence in vitro fertilisation outcomes

The impact of alcohol consumption on in vitro fertilisation outcomes has been assessed in several studies (Firns et al, 2015; Chandravati and Tripathi, 2021; Rao et al, 2022). Consensus among these...

The effect of supportive intrapartum care during birth in Jordan: a quasi-experimental study

A quasi-experimental study was conducted, using a pre-, post-test design with a control group. This design was chosen to manage a range of feasibility issues; for example, group assignment was...

Trialling an expressed breast milk management video for pregnant women in Indonesia

This study used a quasi-experimental design in the form of a randomised controlled pre-/post-test trial. Two randomly selected sample groups were selected using a cluster randomised trial. The...

What makes an excellent labour ward co-ordinator? Insights from the multidisciplinary team

This study, using a constructive grounded theory design, was conducted at a maternity unit in the north of England with an annual birth rate of approximately 5000 births. Facilities included a...

Midwives’ practice of maternal positions throughout active second stage labour: an integrative review

An integrative review was considered suitable for this study, as this methodology allows inclusion of data from all types of literature to fully answer review questions (Whittemore and Knafl, 2005;...

Ultraprocessed food and pregnancy

Ultraprocessed foods have been defined as ‘industrial formulations of substances derived from foods, which typically contain cosmetic additives…and little, if any, whole foods’ (Rauber et al, 2021)....

The important impact of social media

Social media is increasingly being investigated by researchers, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic, where digital communication became even more prevalent. A review published in our April...

Supporting families with multiples

Max's legacy: an evaluation of the impacts of baby loss on staff and families

A baby loss aftercare project team was created by a maternity support worker and included the early pregnancy assessment unit senior nurse and support worker, obstetric consultant, registrars and baby...

Women's experiences accessing continuity of care in Ireland: a qualitative study

A qualitative study design was used to explore and compare the experiences of continuity of care advanced midwifery practitioner service users with their previous experience of at least one other...

Psychometric proprieties of the Arabic Cambridge worry scale among pregnant women

To facilitate tool translation and validation, a cross-sectional design was used for this psychometric study. Recruitment took place in five maternal and child health centres in Irbid city in north...