Midwives’ contribution to normal childbirth care

About the project

Project title: Midwives’ contribution to normal childbirth care. Cross-sectional study in public health settings.

This project is part of the research network: Building Intrapartum Research through Health – an interdisciplinary whole system approach to understanding and contextualizing physiological labour and birth (BIRHT) - COST Action IS.

Some recent research has shown that births attended by midwives result in positive outcomes. The latest guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, 2014) on Intrapartum care for healthy women and babies recommends, among other practices, that care should be provided by midwives and that low risk environments for intrapartum should be promoted. It is acknowledged that care provision for low risk women in high risk environments results in increased economic costs as well as having an impact on women’s health. The aim of the study is to identify the proportion of low risk births attended by midwives in public hospitals; to identify pre-established process and outcomes indicators for low risk births attended by Midwives, and to explore health outcomes for mothers and babies for those births attended by midwives. The research is taken part in three European countries, Spain, Iceland and Ireland.

Members

Sigfridur Inga Karlsdottir, Associate professor, University of Akureyri, Akureyri, Iceland
Rhona O’Connell, Professor, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
Sigridur Sia Jonsdottir, Doctoral candidate, Assistant professor, University of Akureyri, Iceland
Ramón Escuriet, Directorate for planning and health research of the ministry of Health of the Government of Catalonia, Spain

Collaborators

Ministry of Health of the Government of Catalonia, Spain
University College Cork, Cork, Ireland