Product Description

Evidence-based care is a well established principle in contemporary healthcare and a world wide health care movement. However, despite the emphasis on promoting evidence-based or effective care without the unnecessary use of technologies and drugs, intervention rates in childbirth are rising rapidly.

Evidence-based Care for Normal Labour and Birth brings to light much of the evidence around what works best for normal birth which has, until now, remained largely hidden and ignored by maternity care professionals. Beginning with the decision about where to have a baby, through all the phases of labour to the immediate post-birth period, it systematically details research and other evidence sources that endorse a low intervention approach. The book:

• highlights where the evidence is compelling


• discusses its application where women question its relevance to them and where the practitioner's expertise leads them to challenge it


• gives background and context before discussing the research to date


• includes questions for reflection and practice recommendations generated from the evidence.

Using research data, Evidence-based Care for Normal Labour and Birth critiques institutionalised, scientifically managed birth and endorses a more humane midwifery-led model. Packed with up-to-date and relevant information, this controversial book will help all students, practising midwives and doulas keep abreast of the evidence surrounding normal birth and ensure their practice takes full advantage of it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205099 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 186 pages

Review

In his multi-faceted book Denis Walsh explores research-based evidence about birth, examining practices in the orthodox medical method and empirically-based and more adventurous midwifery practice. He raises the questions that need to be asked about the medical management of birth, and considers ways in which it might be changed to focus instead on womens needs and spontaneous psycho-physiological processes. Denis Walsh stimulates creative thinking...he is essential reading for all student midwives. - Sheila Kitzinger, birth activist

A well written and powerful book which is a must for midwives, mothers and the medical profession. Denis Walsh eloquently exposes the faults and failures in our current provision of maternity services and offers alternatives that challenge the orthodoxy of the biomedical model. - Professor Paul Lewis, Academic Head of Midwifery and Child Health, Bournemouth University, UK

This scholarly, readable book provides a springboard for practitioners to jump into the deep pool of their own and their clients experiences...Throughout, this book celebrates the dignity of childbearing women, emphasizing their need for kind, respectful, and compassionate care. - Jane Pincus, Birth, September 2008

Customer Reviews

CALLING ALL MIDWIVES
Working as a midwife in hospital meens negotiating the landmines of intervention with women to ensure that birth can be "normal". Denis Walsh examines the evidence for routine CTG monitoring, the labour progress model, active mamagement of third stage and definitions and management of blood loss etc to question our understanding of what is normal.
Current medical interventionalist models view birth as normal only in retrospect. Midwives understand that birthing women display many types of "normal". READ THIS BOOK AND START ASKING THE QUESTIONS OF YOURSELF AND YOUR PRACTICE. Do we really have the evidence for what we do? Is this kind of evidence able to allow for examination of womens experience of the interventions and their impact on their birthing? There is lots of work to be done to understand what is normal.

Midwife and researcher extraordinaire!
Denis Walsh, midwife, midwifery consultant, and lecturer in the United Kingdom, believes profoundly in midwifery-led care and in the rhythmic course of physiological labor and birth. In his book, Evidence-Based Care for Normal Labour and Birth: A Guide for Midwives, addressing the relatively new evidence-based care paradigm, he seeks to expand the definition of "evidence" so that qualitative research gains credibility in a technological world enamored of quantification. He reminds readers of the huge collection of knowledge, ancient and modern, that qualifies as authentic evidence -- an extensive body of research supporting the natural physiology of labor and birth; midwives' intuitive and observational powers; and the unique stories, feelings, and reactions of birthing women throughout the ages. Much of this wisdom is in danger of being lost, submerged by the modern focus on technology and childbirth pathology that so many practitioners and childbearing women are struggling with each day.
Throughout, Walsh illustrates his points with studies and articles, suggesting the many areas that that call out for further exploration, and challenging readers to find ways to keep vital knowledge alive. Each chapter ends with "Practice Recommendations and Questions for Reflection.".
Among so many important issues, Walsh discusses "Evidence-based care: the new orthodoxy for maternity services," and acknowledges the proliferation of systematic reviews "embraced...with an almost evangelistic fervour." He critiques them, noting that many are politically laden efforts carried out against a background of increasing medicalization. Most research bypasses women's vital concerns, performed as it is in hospital settings subject to time pressures, institutional constraints and regulations, and mediated by power differences both within professional groups, and between professionals and women. He then contrasts the woman-centered "social" model of care with the large- scale "toxic" biomedical model. All the while he advocates for midwives' autonomy as they work in partnership with colleagues and with the women they serve.
This is an INVALUABLE guide for childbearing women, practitioners and obstetrical policy makers.