Midwife-Led Ultrasound Scanning to Date Pregnancy in Malawi: Development of a Novel Training Program.

The use of ultrasound to determine gestational age is fundamental to the optimum management of pregnancy and is recommended for all women by the World Health Organization. However, this modality remains unavailable to many women in low-income countries where trained practitioners are scarce. Although previous initiatives have demonstrated efficacy in training midwives and technicians to perform antenatal ultrasound, these programs have often been too long and too complex to be realistic within the specific constraints of this context, highlighting the need for a novel and pragmatic approach. We describe the development and piloting of a bespoke course to teach midwives 3 fundamental components of early antenatal ultrasound scanning: (1) to identify the number of fetuses, (2) to confirm fetal viability, and (3) to determine gestational age. Having established that 5 days is insufficient, we propose that the minimum duration required to train ultrasound-naive midwives to competency is 10 days. Our completed program therefore consists of one and one-half days of didactic teaching, followed by 8 and one-half days of supervised hands-on practical training in which trainees are assessed on their skills. This package has subsequently been successfully implemented across 6 sites in Malawi, where 28 midwives have achieved competency. By describing the processes involved in our cross-continental collaboration, we explain how unexpected challenges helped shape and improve our program, demonstrating the value of preimplementation piloting and a pragmatic and adaptive approach.

Midwifery continuity of carer: Developing a realist evaluation framework to evaluate the implementation of strategic change in Scotland.

Midwifery continuity of carer (MCC) models result in better clinical outcomes for women and offer midwives a superior way of working when compared to other models of maternity care. Implementing a MCC model, a key recommendation of the Scottish Government Maternity and Neonatal Strategy Best Start, requires significant restructuring of maternity services and changes to midwives' roles. Careful evaluation is therefore required to monitor and understand how the policy affects care providers and users. Realist evaluation is an appropriate methodology for evaluating programmes of change set within complex social organisations, such as health services, and can help to understand variations in outcomes and experiences. This paper presents the approach taken using the principles of realist evaluation to identify key programme theories, which then informed an evaluation framework and a midwives' evaluation tool. The comprehensive survey-tool developed for midwives has the potential to be used more widely to evaluate comparable strategic change in this area.

An exploratory qualitative analysis of student midwives views of teaching methods that could build their confidence to deliver perinatal bereavement care.

BACKGROUND: Equipping student midwives with confidence to deliver bereavement care to childbearing women is a challenge for midwifery lecturers. OBJECTIVE: To explore qualitative data provided by student midwives who evaluated the workbook Bereavement care for childbearing women and their families (Hollins Martin & Forrest, 2013) to explore their views of potential teaching strategies that could build their confidence to deliver real bereavement care. METHOD: An exploratory qualitative thematic analysis was used to provide, analyse and report themes identified within data collected in a prior study. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were student midwives (n=179) in their second/third year of a midwifery degree program at 1 of 3 universities in the UK were included in the study. DATA COLLECTION/ANALYSIS: Data to evaluate effectiveness of the bereavement workbook as a teaching method was collected using a survey instrument. It was the comments written under questions by participants that were analysed in the present study. FINDINGS: Three themes emerged: (1) increasing classroom interaction, (2) the importance of reflecting on emotions, and (3) need for experience. DISCUSSION: Although this study has addressed delivery of education that relates to midwives, the findings are cross transferable to other healthcare educators, practitioners, and students. Several solutions are proposed that could potentially build student confidence to deliver bereavement care: lecturers should (1) encourage group discussion in the classroom to help build student confidence to emotionally cope during real bereavement events; (2) ensure students gain exposure by encouraging qualified midwives to include them in real bereavement events early on in their training, and (3) develop packages of perinatal bereavement scenarios for simulation and rehearsal in the clinical skills laboratory. Post-implementation, it is recommended that these teaching strategies be evaluated.

The development and validation of an activity monitoring system for use in measurement of posture of childbearing women during first stage of labor.

INTRODUCTION: There is limited understanding of the type and extent of maternal postures that midwives should encourage or support during labor. The aims of this study were to identify a set of postures and movements commonly seen during labor, to develop an activity monitoring system for use during labor, and to validate this system design. METHODS: Volunteer student midwives simulated maternal activity during labor in a laboratory setting. Participants (N = 15) wore monitors adhered to the left thigh and left shank, and adopted 13 common postures of laboring women for 3 minutes each. Simulated activities were recorded using a video camera. Postures and movements were coded from the video, and statistical analysis conducted of agreement between coded video data and outputs of the activity monitoring system. RESULTS: Excellent agreement between the 2 raters of the video recordings was found (Cohen's κ = 0.95). Both sensitivity and specificity of the activity monitoring system were greater than 80% for standing, lying, kneeling, and sitting (legs dangling). DISCUSSION: This validated system can be used to measure elected activity of laboring women and report on effects of postures on length of first stage, pain experience, birth satisfaction, and neonatal condition. This validated maternal posture-monitoring system is available as a reference-and for use by researchers who wish to develop research in this area.

Protocols, policy directives and choice provision: UK midwives' views.

PURPOSE: Within maternity hospitals midwives are expected to follow the protocol-driven culture and orders issued by senior staff. Simultaneously, midwives are expected to follow social policy documents and the Midwives Rules and Standards that advocate choice provision for childbearing women. Quality assurors and auditors of clinical practice need to be aware that these two directives sometimes clash. Allegiance to a hierarchical system driven by protocols and orders from the top down, at the same time as providing "woman-centred" care is often unattainable. In order for a midwife to action the woman's choice, resourceful thinking may be required. This paper aims to examine this issue. DESIGN/ METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A descriptive interview study set out to discover strategies which midwives use to resolve conflict produced from competing directives. An appraisal of 20 midwives' views were gained from semi-structured interviews conducted in seven maternity units in the UK. Taking a post-positivist approach, inductive thematic analysis was used to interpret the data. FINDINGS: Three main categories represented resourceful ways of pleasing both authority and the childbearing woman. Midwives occasionally: are economical with the truth; circumvent face-to-face confrontation with senior staff; and persuade women to refuse what they perceive are unnecessary and invasive interventions. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper offers unique insights into methods that midwives use to resolve conflicts in direction issued by management. It is important that auditors are aware that midwives sometimes struggle to support the preferences of healthy childbearing women. This reduces job satisfaction, delivery of care and consequently requires address.