Background: Research in maternity care is often conducted in mixed low and high-risk or solely high-risk populations. This limits generalizability to the low-risk population of pregnant women receiving care from Dutch midwives. To address this limitation, 24 midwifery practices in the Netherlands bring …

Objective Vulnerability among pregnant women is an important and complex theme in the everyday practice of midwives. Exchanging knowledge and best practices about vulnerability between midwives in Europe can contribute to improving the knowledge and skills of midwives and as a result improve the care …

Background: Pregnant women use childbirth reality programs to prepare themselves for childbirth. It is unknown how shared decision-making in intrapartum midwifery care is represented in televised birth. We aimed to explore the portrayal of shared decision-making during labour and birth in lifetime documentary …

Review: With great interest we have read the paper “Pregnancy Screening before Diagnostic Radiography in Emergency Department; an Educational Review” by A.I. Abushouk et al. (1). We agree with the authors that unnecessary fetal radiation exposure should be avoided and that pregnancy screening can …

Aims To quantify the preferences and preparations for support during labor and the first hours after childbirth of pregnant women and the specific preference for continuous support. To investigate the association with parity and the intended place of birth. Design Cross-sectional survey. Methods Twelve …

Objective in the promotion of periconceptional health, appropriate attention has to be given to the perceptions of those who are most vulnerable, such as women with a relatively low socioeconomic status based on their educational attainment. The aim of this study was to explore these women's perceptions …

Background: The importance of the preconception period and preconception care (PCC) are broadly acknowledged and the potential benefits regarding health promotion have been studied extensively. PCC provides the opportunity to identify, prevent, and treat modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors to optimize …

Aim: To explore Dutch pregnant women’s experiences of shared-decision making about place of birth to better understand this process for midwifery care purposes. Design: Qualitative exploratory study with a constant comparison/grounded theory design. Methods: We performed semi-structured interviews, …

Objective: Gaining too much or too little weight in pregnancy (according to Institute of Medicine (IOM) guidelines) negatively affects both mother and child, but many women find it difficult to manage their gestational weight gain (GWG). Here we describe the use of the intervention mapping protocol to …

At the beginning of the twenty first century obesity entered Dutch maternity care as a ‘new illness’ challenging maternity care professionals in providing optimal care for women with higher BMI’s. International research revealed that obese women had more perinatal problems than normal weight women. …