This book helps parents and professionals better understand the issues and the evidence relating to the current induction epidemic. Looks at due dates, 'post-term', older and larger women, suspected big babies, maternal race and more.
When is it better to induce labour than to let a woman's body or baby decide the best time for birth? What are the pros and cons of waiting and of being induced? What about after the due date? When the baby is thought to be bigger than average? When the woman is older? If she had IVF? Or when her waters have broken earlier than usual? Induction of labour is an increasingly common recommendation and more and more women find themselves having to decide whether to let their body and baby go into labour spontaneously or agree to medical intervention. This book explains the process of induction of labour and shares information from research studies, debates and women's, midwives' and doctors' experiences to help women and families become more informed and make the decision that is right for them.
Group B strep (or GBS) is a common and usually harmless type of bacteria, but it can very occasionally cause serious disease in newborn babies. Many pregnant women are offered screening and prevention for GBS, but there are pros and cons to this, as the main preventative (or prophylactic) measure involves women having antibiotics given to them by intravenous drip in labour. In this updated second edition of her popular book, Dr Sara Wickham discusses the different perspectives on GBS, the screening and prevention options that are available, the wider issues relating to this area, the alternative paths that some people take, the answers to parents' most frequently asked questions and more. Dr Sara Wickham is a midwife, educator and researcher. She is the author or editor of sixteen books, has edited three midwifery journals and provides in-person and online educational and consultancy services for midwifery and health-related organisations around the world. "Sara has written an excellent and important book. She has pulled all of the evidence (in its many forms) together into a comprehensive woman-centred resource. Sara's writing makes complex information accessible to all. I'd recommend this book to women, and anyone involved in caring for childbearing women. I learned lots." - Dr Rachel Reed, Midwifery Lecturer and Author of MidwifeThinking. "Sara has a remarkable ability to search through extensive amounts of research and to translate it into simple, easy to understand language. She has achieved that once again in this beautifully written book. The choices women face as they negotiate their births are challenging, but are always made easier by having accurate, easy to understand information. This is THE book to go to for everything you need to know about GBS." - Dr Kirsten Small, Obstetrician Gynaecologist.
Improving maternal health and reducing child mortality are among the eight UN Millennium Development Goals. This publication contains guidance on maternity protection in the workplace, focusing on measures that can be taken to establish a decent workplace and to identify workplace risks. The starting point is the Maternity Protection Convention (No. 183), adopted by the International Labour Conference in 2000 and its accompanying Recommendation (No. 191). The guide is intended for general use as a reference tool for employers, workers, trade union leaders, occupation health and safety advisors, labour inspectors and others involved in workplace health and maternity protection.
Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.
Fifty years ago, we learned that giving a medicine called Anti-D to childbearing women with rhesus negative blood could help protect their future babies from an age-old disease. But the same research which showed this also raised some tantalising questions, to which we still don't know all the answers. Today, rhesus negative women are offered Anti-D at several points during their pregnancy and birth journeys. Many would like to know more than they can read in the standard information leaflets on this topic. Many have questions about whether they really need this medicine. This book has been written to explain the issues, to answer key questions and to share information about what we do and do not know about Anti-D and related topics from research evidence and current thinking. Dr Sara Wickham is an author, speaker and researcher who has been writing and lecturing about Anti-D and pregnancy and birth related topics for more than twenty years. "Sara Wickham has found an original way to raise judicious yet unusual questions. Thanks to her exceptional capacity for lateral thinking she has developed the art of 'hitting the nail on the head'. The genuine pioneers are those who raise the right questions at the right time." Dr Michel Odent, Founder, Primal Health Research Centre. Foreword by Dr Michel Odent.
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
Scores of talented and dedicated people serve the forensic science community, performing vitally important work. However, they are often constrained by lack of adequate resources, sound policies, and national support. It is clear that change and advancements, both systematic and scientific, are needed in a number of forensic science disciplines to ensure the reliability of work, establish enforceable standards, and promote best practices with consistent application. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward provides a detailed plan for addressing these needs and suggests the creation of a new government entity, the National Institute of Forensic Science, to establish and enforce standards within the forensic science community. The benefits of improving and regulating the forensic science disciplines are clear: assisting law enforcement officials, enhancing homeland security, and reducing the risk of wrongful conviction and exoneration. Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States gives a full account of what is needed to advance the forensic science disciplines, including upgrading of systems and organizational structures, better training, widespread adoption of uniform and enforceable best practices, and mandatory certification and accreditation programs. While this book provides an essential call-to-action for congress and policy makers, it also serves as a vital tool for law enforcement agencies, criminal prosecutors and attorneys, and forensic science educators.
Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.
Patient-centered, high-quality health care relies on the well-being, health, and safety of health care clinicians. However, alarmingly high rates of clinician burnout in the United States are detrimental to the quality of care being provided, harmful to individuals in the workforce, and costly. It is important to take a systemic approach to address burnout that focuses on the structure, organization, and culture of health care. Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being builds upon two groundbreaking reports from the past twenty years, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, which both called attention to the issues around patient safety and quality of care. This report explores the extent, consequences, and contributing factors of clinician burnout and provides a framework for a systems approach to clinician burnout and professional well-being, a research agenda to advance clinician well-being, and recommendations for the field.