Proactive Support of Labor: The Challenge of Normal Childbirth

by Paul Reuwer, Hein Bruinse, Arie Franx

Overview

Proactive Support of Labor enhances professional labor and delivery skills by providing the expertise for preventing prolonged labor which is the root-cause of women's dissatisfaction with the experience of childbirth. Step-by-step, evidence-based guidance on good practice during labor is given, including fetal and maternal monitoring, pain relief, and the prevention and timely correction of everyday labor disorders. It leaves no aspect of childbirth practice untouched. Included are guidance on adequate pre-labor education, psychological support, and well-defined birth-planning - including strict diagnoses and timely corrective measures in abnormal labor, and constant audit of all procedures. The birth-plan promotes team spirit between obstetricians, midwives and nurses, good communication, and sound organization. Proactive Support of Labor strikes a new balance between natural birth and intervention and invariably enhances women's satisfaction with the childbirth experience. The book will be essential reading for obstetricians, midwives, labor room nurses, and maternal-fetal medicine specialists and trainees. For more information, reviews and forums visit the publication's website at www.proactivesupportoflabor.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780511737855
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/19/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Paul Reuwer is an Obstetrician/Perinatologist at St. Elisabeth Hospital/Brabant Medical School, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Hein Bruinse is Professor of Clinical Obstetrics, Department of Obstetrics, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Arie Franx is Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist, Department of Obstretrics and Gynecology, St. Elisabeth hospital/Brabant Medical School, Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Table of Contents

Foreword; 1. General introduction; Part I. A Wake-Up Call: 2. Medical excess in normal childbirth; 3. Iatrogenic causes of failed labors; 4. Harmful birth care practices; 5. Destructive territorial disputes; 6. Self-sustaining mechanisms; Part II. Back to Basics: 7. Lessons from nature; 8. Elementary biophysics of birth; 9. First stage labor revisited; 10. Second stage labor redefined; 11. Definitions and verbal precision; Part III. Proactive Support of Labor: 12. Introductory synopsis; 13. Nulliparous versus parous labor; 14. Diagnosis of labor; 15. Prevention of long labor; 16. Personal continuity and continuous support; 17. Amniotomy and oxytocin; 18. Labor pain in broader perspective; 19. Prelabor preparation; 20. Medical pain relief revisited; 21. Dynamic dystocia unraveled; 22. Mechanical birth obstruction; 23. Curtailed use of induction; 24. Intrapartum care of fetus; 25. Prevention of litigation; 26. Organizational reforms; 27. Continual audit and feedback; 28. Quality assessment; 29. Hospital statistics; 30. Sum of the parts; References; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"This book is worthwhile reading for everybody involved in birth care, especially for junior staff with limited obstetric training … It is a good teaching resource in developing countries and provides a good starting point for cooperation between primary and secondary care providers."
Arie C. Glas, Bulletin of the Netherlands Society for Tropical Medicine and International Health

From the Publisher

Reviewer: Robin Webb Corbett, PhD, RN C(East Carolina University)
Description: This book encourages the healthcare team — physicians, nurse midwives, and nurses — to reexamine our labor and delivery practices, with a view toward making laboring patient care less technologically based and more evidence based.
Purpose: The purpose is to present a "cohesive, evidence-based plan" for the care of the normal, healthy laboring woman, promoting a team approach to the delivery of care to "promote spontaneous delivery" and to "enhance women's satisfaction" with their childbirth experience. These are worthy objectives and this book will encourage dialogue.
Audience: It is written for healthcare providers and students who care for the normal laboring woman. It is also intended for lay readers interested in supportive labor. While most appropriate for healthcare providers and students, the book would be beneficial for laypeople who are familiar with the terminology. The authors are clinicians in obstetrics, advanced maternal-fetal medicine, and midwifery in the Netherlands.
Features: The book presents evidence-based guidelines reviewing pain relief, fetal and maternal monitoring, and the prevention of intrapartal complications. The emphasis is on promoting the body's natural laboring process to enhance the mother's satisfaction with the childbirth experience. Evidence-based care is reviewed and discussed. As a reviewer states, this book provides a good counterbalance to our present state of interventional intrapartal care.
Assessment: This will promote dialogue and discussion among healthcare providers caring for intrapartal families. It suggests a new look at the evidence in our delivery of care to promote a more natural delivery with less technological intervention by providers. It also emphasizes a team approach to the delivery of care. Inclusion of these aspects of care will increase the new family's satisfaction with the childbirth experience.

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