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Pregnancy

Bump Start: developing and piloting a healthy living group intervention for obese pregnant women

Maternal obesity (a body mass index (BMI) of 30kg/m2 or higher at the first antenatal consultation) is a key modifiable risk factor in pregnancy The health problems linked to maternal BMI for both...

Providing sun safety advice: The midwife's role

Of all the different types of cancer diagnosed globally, skin cancer is the most prolific (Nguyen et al, 2012), and melanoma remains the major cause of death from skin cancer (Trakatelli et al, 2012)...

Caring for pregnant women with long-term conditions: maternal and neonatal effects of epilepsy

Worldwide, epilepsy is thought to affect approximately 1% of people (Grant, 2016) Though subject to various methodological (definitions of disease) and clinical issues (diagnostic criteria) this...

Periodontal health and pregnancy

This article discusses factors that affect periodontal (gum) health and implications associated with delay in conception and reported adverse pregnancy outcomes Periodontal disease is the result of a...

Prevention of neonatal whooping cough in England: The essential role of the midwife

Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease of global public health significance Estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO, 2011) suggest that, in 2008, about 16 million cases of pertussis...

Cerebrospinal fluid shunts in the maternity context

As a result of advances in medicine, midwives and obstetricians are increasingly seeing a number women with complex medical histories This may include women who have been born with hydro cephalus, or...

Epilepsy in pregnancy: Pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterised by recurrent unprovoked seizures (Krumholz et al, 2015) It is one of the most common chronic medical disorders, affecting up to 50 million people...

Immune thrombocytopaenia in pregnancy: Key principles for the midwife

Midwives are experts in the care of normal pregnancy/birth, but are also professionally accountable for detecting deviations and initiating immediate referral to an appropriate expert (Nursing and...

What should midwives know about Zika virus infection?

On 1 February 2016, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the recent outbreak of cases of fetal microcephaly linked to Zika in South America an international public...

Should midwives consider associated psychological factors when caring for women who are obese?

According to the Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE, 2010: xiii), ‘obesity is arguably the biggest challenge facing maternity services today’ Obesity is defined as having a body mass index...

Thalassaemia in pregnancy: Contemporary care for a timeless disease

Thalassaemia is one of the most common genetic blood disorders affecting women's ability to conceive and progress through a normal pregnancy and birth (Hanprasertpong et al, 2013) Currently, there are...

Antiepileptic drug management during pregnancy: A shared decision approach

It is estimated that there are 81 500 women of childbearing potential (aged 12–50 years) in England with a diagnosis of epilepsy who are prescribed antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) (National Institute for...

Are we getting the message across? Women's perceptions of public health messages in pregnancy

The potential for midwives to have a long-term impact on families by engaging purposefully in their public health role has been more clearly recognised in recent years, with publications such as...

Micronutrients and the use of vitamin and mineral supplements during pregnancy and lactation

Optimal birth weight is often seen as the primary indicator of a positive pregnancy outcome, while a low birth weight or a baby born small for gestational age (SGA) is indicative of impaired fetal...

Bladder care in the context of motherhood: Ensuring holistic midwifery practice

The physiological processes of pregnancy and birth involve dramatic changes in the urogenital system, impacting women's bladder health in both the short and long term, and influencing psychological...

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