Pregnancy
You are here: Startseite / For parents /
Midwifery care and prevention in pregnancy
I’m pregnant! A baby is on its way … and suddenly there are hundreds of questions: What should and shouldn’t I eat in pregnancy? What should I consider when exercising? Where should I give birth?… With a thousand question marks on your mind, it is great to have a midwife you can ask about practically anything regarding your pregnancy!
Parents-to-be want to do everything right … no wonder, as having a baby comes with great responsibility.
Midwives have comprehensive knowledge about everything related to being pregnant – the wonderful ways, in which bodies adapt to let a small being grow, and the pleasant and sometimes not so pleasant changes and feelings related to this process.
Midwives have useful tricks and knacks for typical pregnancy complaints and offer orientation when you are faced with an overload of information and offers, which is quite frequent in our times of internet and social media.
Regardless of the circumstances, low-risk or high-risk pregnancy, midwives are valuable care takers and collaborate closely with other professions, such as gynaecologists or pediatricians.
The useful online Midwife search helps you to find a midwife near-by!
Evidence proves the positive effect of midwifery care
Healthy women profit greatly from midwifery care. This result is corroborated by the work of Jane Sandall from King’s College London and her colleagues from the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group. They systematically compared 13 studies with all together 16.242 pregnant women from Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Great Britain.
The researchers compared a care model, in which women received midwifery care from the beginning of pregnancy, with a care model, in which the main responsibility rested with a gynaecologist or general practitioner. Among women receiving midwifery care in pregnancy and during child birth, the rate of episiotomies decreased, vacuum and forceps deliveries were less frequent and – in spite of an on average 30 minute longer duration of labour – less analgesics and epidurals (local anesthesia of the spinal nerves) were administered.
Furthermore in the group of women cared for by midwives the risk of premature birth was 23 percent lower and the risk of the baby dying before the 24th week of pregnancy was 19 percent less than in the second-model group. The rate of caesarean sections was equal in both groups. Another difference is that women cared for by midwives had a higher rate of satisfaction than those in the other group.The author of the study, Jane Sandall, and her team advice pregnant women to seek midwifery care during their pregnancies.
They conclude that midwife-led continuity models should be offered to most women.
Read more: Sandall J, Soltani H, Gates S, Shennan A, Devane De. Midwife-led continuity models versus other models of care for childbearing women. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2016, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD004667. DOI: 10.1002/14651858. CD004667.pub5.
Guideline: Recommendations for a healthy pregnancy
Decision-making aids for the most frequent and important questions during pregnancy
ISBN: 978-3-200-06762-2. Version 1.0, Dezember 2019
The guideline was developed on the initiative of the Austrian Midwives Committee in collaboration with the Department of Evidence-based Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology at Danube University Krems and an interdisciplinary guideline committee.
News
Sorry, we couldn't find any articles. Please try a different search.