Continuing Education Module-The Childbirth Educator's Role in Teaching Post-Birth Warning Signs.

The U.S. maternal mortality rate has doubled in the past 25 years and has risen despite improvements in health care and an overwhelming global trend in the other direction.

Childbirth education in rural haiti: reviving low-tech teaching strategies.

On a medical mission into rural mountainous regions of Haiti, the authors were charged with teaching safer childbirth practices to untrained, mostly illiterate traditional birth attendants (TBA) who spoke Haitian Creole. In this isolated region with no physician or accessible hospital, almost all births occur at home. With no electricity, safe water supply, or sanitation facilities, childbirth education was a challenge.

First do no harm: interventions during childbirth.

Although medical and technological advances in maternity care have drastically reduced maternal and infant mortality, these interventions have become commonplace if not routine. Used appropriately, they can be life-saving procedures. Routine use, without valid indications, can transform childbirth from a normal physiologic process and family life event into a medical or surgical procedure.