Best Practices in Midwifery, 2nd Edition

This book examines efforts involving midwifery to improve the health of women and children in the United States, including Strong Start, US MERA, CenteringPregnancy®, and focuses on physiologic birth. While the first chapter deals with midwifery issues in the United States and other countries, the second discusses an action plan to create a high-quality, high-value maternity care system that facilitates physiologic childbearing for women and babies. Searching for evidence-based information is a best practice skill in providing midwifery care, and the third chapter deals with the evaluation and usage of scientific evidence. Midwives are most known for their care of women during the prenatal, intra-partum, and postpartum periods. There has also been a renewed focus on nutrition during pregnancy and its role in determining a newborn’s genetic phenotype. Chapters 6 and 7 describe the evidence-based best practices for the preconception, antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum care of the obese woman, and methods to assist women in reaching optimal prenatal weight gain. Women need to be up to date on all adult vaccinations prior to pregnancy, and need to receive the influenza injection and the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccine in each pregnancy. African American women experience health disparities, including maternal and infant mortality, preterm birth, and low birth weight, at a rate two to three times that of White women. Midwives need to understand how the move toward value-based purchasing.