Birth environment interventions and outcomes: A scoping review.

BACKGROUND: The physical environments in which women give birth can contribute positively to meeting both physiologic and psychosocial needs during labor. Most studies on the labor and delivery processes have focused on mitigating pain and providing psychological support. Fewer have explored the influence of the physical birth environment. In this study, we performed a scoping review to compile and examine qualitative and quantitative studies related to the characteristics of physical birth environments and their effects on labor outcomes. METHODS: We searched the PubMed, CINHAL, Cochrane, Web of Science, and MEDLINE databases from inception to May 2022. A total of 13 studies met the criteria for inclusion in our review. Two reviewers screened the titles and full-text articles and extracted data from the included studies. We used summary statistics and narrative summaries to describe the study characteristics, intervention implementation guidelines, intervention selection and tailoring rationale, and intervention effects. RESULTS: In previous research, several elements of birth environments have been shown to provide physical and psychological support to birthing people and to improve outcomes related to the experience of care and pain management. We identified five main themes in the included studies: (1) "hominess;" (2) whether spaces are comfortable for activity; (3) demedicalization of the birth environment; (4) accommodations for birth partners; and (5) providing women with a sense of control over their birth environment. CONCLUSIONS: Birth environments should be designed to promote positive birthing experiences, both physiologically and psychologically. Facilities and those who manage them can improve the experiences and outcomes of service users by modifying or designing spaces that are "homey," comfortable for activity, demedicalized, and include natural elements. In addition, policies that allow the birthing person to control her own environment are key to promoting positive outcomes and satisfaction with the birth experience.

Effects of a prenatal mindfulness program on longitudinal changes in stress, anxiety, depression, and mother-infant bonding of women with a tendency to perinatal mood and anxiety disorder: a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Stress is a risk factor for poor physical and mental health, affecting new mothers' ability, especially those with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, to maintain their everyday lives. Over the past 50 years, global incidences of depression and anxiety disorders have increased, reaching pandemic levels. These incidences represent major public health issues that are challenging to detect and treat. Mindfulness programs are viable for reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. The present study evaluates mindfulness intervention effects on stress, anxiety, depression, and mother-infant bonding. METHODS: We collected data on 102 women participating in a prenatal mindfulness program between July 2021 and March 2022; they were parallel and randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. The intervention group received an 8-week course in a prenatal mindfulness program, and the control group received usual standard prenatal care. The self-reported stress, pregnancy-related anxiety, and depression were assessed before and after the intervention and at 36 weeks of gestation. At 2 and 4 months postpartum, all participants provided self-reported their levels of stress, depression, and quality of mother-infant bonding. RESULTS: Compared to the control group, the experimental group that received the prenatal mindfulness intervention experienced reduced prenatal stress, anxiety, and depression and reduced postnatal stress and depression. Despite this, there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of the quality of mother-infant bonding. CONCLUSIONS: Mindfulness prenatal programs are convenient and effective methods of decreasing stress, anxiety, and depression during the perinatal period. Based on our findings, prenatal mindfulness may play a role in mitigating mood and anxiety disorders and should be considered in future approaches to preventing psychological distress. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: This trial has been prospectively registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04693130) and the first registration date was 12/24/2020.

Enhancing bladder management for intrapartum/postpartum women at a maternity hospital in Taiwan: a best practice implementation project.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: Voiding dysfunction is a common perinatal condition. Appropriate bladder management and monitoring during labor and postpartum improves bladder function and reduces the incidence of infections and complications. This project aimed to promote evidence-based bladder management strategies for perinatal women at a maternity hospital in Taiwan. METHODS: The project was implemented using the JBI framework and the JBI Practical Application of Clinical Evidence System. Implementation audits were conducted by examining nurses and intrapartum and postpartum women. Ten criteria were applied in the baseline audit, and two follow-up audits were conducted to assess actual compliance with best-practice recommendations. Through a Getting Research into Practice analysis, we identified three barriers to changing practice. RESULTS: A comparison of the audit outcomes revealed that all criteria had improved by the second follow-up audit cycle. Specifically, the compliance rate increased from 37% and 50% to 100% for criteria 1 and 2, respectively; from 0% to 100% for criteria 3, 5, and 10; and from 7%, 28%, 50%, and 17% to 100%, 100%, 97%, and 100% for criteria 4, 6, 8, and 9, respectively. Following implementation, the frequency of intrapartum intermittent catheterization (53.44-38.30%) and the postpartum incidence of urinary retention (9.09-8.51%) decreased. The time to first voiding after vaginal delivery and between the first and the second voiding decreased from 5.51 and 4.01 h to 2.32 and 2.29 h, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This evidence-based implementation project achieved substantial improvements in bladder management. Relational leadership theory, which integrates empowerment, purposefulness, ethical behaviors, and process orientation, underpinned the project.

Accuracy of non-invasive methods for assessing the progress of labor in the first stage: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization in recent years has emphasized reducing the possibility of unnecessary interventions in natural childbirth, but little is known about the accuracy of non-invasive methods when assessing the progress of labor. This paper presents a literature review to assess strategies that support non-invasive methods for labor during the first stage. It evaluates the available evidence to provide the most suitable assessments and predictions that objectively identify the progress of low-risk labor during the first stage of labor. METHODS: A search for relevant literature was conducted using the electronic databases of PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Sciences, the Cochrane Library, Scopus, Medline (OVID), and CEPS, with publications up to November 2021. Records were screened against pre-specified inclusion/exclusion criteria and the potential papers from Google Scholar were examined to identify additional papers that may have been missed. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool was used to appraise the methodological quality of the included studies. The certainty of the evidence was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Two independent investigators extracted the review's characteristics, and discrepancies were resolved by consensus. This review calculated individual and pooled sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive values, which were exported to STATA (version 14; Stata Corp., College Station, TX) to represent the performance of diagnostic testing. RESULTS: Our search returned 2283 reports of which 13 fulfilled the inclusion criteria, accounting for 2594 women. The subjects were divided into groups according to the diagnostic tests used to assess the progress of their labor, including appearance assessment and sonographic imaging parameters (head perineum distance, HPD; angle of progression, AOP, and other parameters). HPD pooled sensitivity was 0.74 (0.65-0.82), and specificity was 0.77 (0.69-0.84). The pooled diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was 8.21 (4.67-14.41) and 10.34 (5.02-21.27), respectively. The results of subgroup analysis showed that the summary sensitivity and specificity were of medium accuracy overall. The quality of evidence as assessed with GRADE was low. CONCLUSION: Vaginal examination is an intrinsic element in the use of the partogram, while transperineal ultrasound can also be used as an auxiliary tool. However, the presence of publication bias within the parameters of ultrasound indicates that the diagnostic performance may be overestimated. Thus, randomized controlled trials or large-scale prospective cohort studies are necessary.

Applying Mindfulness Techniques to the Management of Depressive Tendencies in Women in Taiwan in the Perinatal Period: A Qualitative Study.

PURPOSE: Perinatal distress, especially depression, commonly occurs during pregnancy and the first year postpartum, but this medical condition are often undiagnosed and untreated. The present study explored how women with depressive symptoms during the perinatal period who had participated in a mindfulness course applied the training and perceived its effects. METHODS: This descriptive qualitative study included 16 women with probable perinatal depression who had participated in an 8-week mindfulness-based childbirth and parenting program during their pregnancy and agreed to be interviewed. One-to-one in-depth interviews were conducted and recorded following the completion of the mindfulness course, approximately 1 month after childbirth. Verbatim transcripts were analyzed using content analysis. RESULTS: We proposed three themes and six subthemes relating to first-time mothers' experiences during and after the group mindfulness-based intervention: learning to be aware of the body and mind (confronting awareness of physical change, managing negative feelings differently), building positive family relationships (strengthening the mother-baby bond, developing a satisfactory marital partnership), and overcoming ongoing challenges (conquering childbirth pain with confidence, accepting unexpected situations). Three main themes were generated to demonstrate how women experience the effects of mindfulness training. CONCLUSIONS: Mindfulness-based interventions helped the participants develop insight into their mood and physical changes and accept their childbirth process. Therefore, mindfulness education programs can be incorporated into prenatal care to enhance the management of the depressive symptoms of perinatal women.

Assessing the effectiveness of mindfulness-based programs on mental health during pregnancy and early motherhood - a randomized control trial.

BACKGROUND: The process of entering motherhood is highly stressful for women, with 15-85% of new mothers experiencing postpartum blues or depression. This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of a mindfulness-based childbirth and parenting program in improving psychological health during the postpartum period. METHODS: This research was a randomized controlled trial with single blinding. Recruitment began after the participating hospital granted formal approval. A total of 74 women between 13 and 28-weeks gestation were allocated either to the intervention group or to the comparison group. The intervention program included a series of eight, 3-h classes held once weekly and 1 day of 7-h silent meditation. Psychological health was assessed at baseline and 3-months postpartum. RESULTS: Significant differences in stress and depression were observed in both groups over time. Stress scores and depression scores were significantly better in the intervention group than in the comparison group at 3-months postpartum (F = 7.19, p = .009 and F = 7.36, p = .008, respectively). No significant difference between the groups was identified for mindfulness scores at 3-months postpartum. CONCLUSIONS: The intervention program effectively reduced postpartum self-perceived stress and depression, suggesting that this program provides acceptable and long-term benefits to women during pregnancy and the postpartum period. The teaching and practice of mindfulness meditation and parenting education during pregnancy may help reduce stress and depression in pregnant women as they transition into parenthood. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The ClinicalTrials.gov identifier for this study is: NCT03185910 . The study was retrospectively registered on 14 June 2017.

Mindfulness-based programme on the psychological health of pregnant women.

PROBLEM: Preparation of psychological well-being is an important component of antenatal education for childbirth, but few courses focus on this component. BACKGROUND: The psychosocial health of pregnant women is known to affect perinatal outcomes. Psychosocial stress in women has been associated with increased obstetric interventions and has been shown to affect the health of both mother and child. AIM: To explore the efficacy of an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting programme on reducing prenatal stress, depression, mindfulness, and childbirth self-efficacy. METHODS: In this prospective and randomized controlled trial study, 104 women between 13 and 28 weeks gestation were enrolled and assigned randomly into two groups. Participants in the experimental group received mindfulness-based programme and practice-at-home with audio recordings. The comparison group received traditional education classes. Psychological health was assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 36-week gestation. FINDINGS: Significant differences were seen in both groups in terms of changes over time in stress, depression, childbirth self-efficacy, and mindfulness, as compared with baseline. In gestation week 36, stress scores were slightly higher and childbirth self-efficacy and mindfulness scores were lower for both groups, but all scores were relatively better in the experimental than in the comparison group. CONCLUSIONS: Perinatal mental health problems affect mothers, their infants, and society. The eight-week mindfulness programme effectively reduced self-perceived stress and depression and increased childbirth self-efficacy and mindfulness. Future research is needed to explore the potential benefits, mechanisms, and effects on maternal and infant birth outcomes of mindfulness.