Applying Ethical Principles When Discussing Alcohol Use During Pregnancy.

Over the past 2 decades, more women in the United States are engaging in excessive alcohol use, including women of reproductive age. Consuming alcohol in amounts greater than recommended limits is associated with an increased risk for adverse health effects, such as breast cancer, hypertension stroke, spontaneous abortion, and infertility. No safe time, safe amount, or safe type of alcohol to consume during pregnancy has been identified.

Obstetric and fetal triage.

Triage in healthcare is sorting patients by acuity to prioritize them for full evaluation. Standardizing this process with the use of triage acuity classification tools has been shown to improve patient flow and quality of care in the emergency department. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that pregnant women be triaged based on acuity, rather than time of arrival, and that obstetric triage acuity scales can serve as templates for use at the facility level.

Nurses Leading Safe Infant Sleep Initiatives in the Hospital Setting.

Every day, 10 otherwise healthy infants die from sleep-related deaths in the United States. These deaths, termed sudden unexpected infant death, remain the leading cause of post-neonatal death in the United States despite known modifiable risk factors and prevention recommendations. In birthing hospitals, many parents report being given incorrect and sometimes no information about infant sleep safety, which creates immediate and long-term safety concerns.

Consensus Bundle on Severe Hypertension During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period.

Complications arising from hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are among the leading causes of preventable severe maternal morbidity and mortality. Timely and appropriate treatment has the potential to significantly reduce hypertension-related complications. To assist health care providers in achieving this goal, this patient safety bundle provides guidance to coordinate and standardize the care provided to women with severe hypertension during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Consensus Bundle on Severe Hypertension During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period.

Complications arising from hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are among the leading causes of preventable severe maternal morbidity and mortality. Timely and appropriate treatment has the potential to significantly reduce hypertension-related complications. To assist health care providers in achieving this goal, this patient safety bundle provides guidance to coordinate and standardize the care provided to women with severe hypertension during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Severe Hypertension During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period.

Complications arising from hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are among the leading causes of preventable severe maternal morbidity and mortality. Timely and appropriate treatment has the potential to significantly reduce hypertension-related complications. To assist health care providers in achieving this goal, this patient safety bundle provides guidance to coordinate and standardize the care provided to women with severe hypertension during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Consensus Bundle on Severe Hypertension During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period.

Complications arising from hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are among the leading causes of preventable severe maternal morbidity and mortality. Timely and appropriate treatment has the potential to significantly reduce hypertension-related complications. To assist health care providers in achieving this goal, this patient safety bundle provides guidance to coordinate and standardize the care provided to women with severe hypertension during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Consequences of Inadequate Staffing Include Missed Care, Potential Failure to Rescue, and Job Stress and Dissatisfaction.

Objective: To evaluate responses of registered nurse members of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) to a survey that sought their recommendations for staffing guidelines and their perceptions of the consequences of inadequate nurse staffing. The goal was to use these member data to inform the work of the AWHONN nurse staffing research team.

Design: Secondary analysis of responses to the 2010 AWHONN nurse staffing survey.

Providing Nursing Care Women and Babies Deserve.

Nursing Care Women and Babies Deserve describes the core habits of character, also called virtues, that nurses can strive to incorporate into their care of women and newborns. This commentary provides background on the development of Nursing Care Women and Babies Deserve, as well as inspiring examples of how nurses incorporate these virtues into their nursing practice.

Content Validity Testing of the Maternal Fetal Triage Index.

Objective: To describe the development and content validity testing of the Maternal Fetal Triage Index (MFTI), a standardized tool for obstetric triage.

Design: Online survey.

Participants: Participants included 15 registered nurses, 15 certified nurse-midwives, and 15 physicians from across the United States who provided maternity care.

Interrater Reliability Testing of the Maternal Fetal Triage Index.

Objective: To conduct interrater reliability testing of the Maternal Fetal Triage Index (MFTI), a standardized tool for obstetric triage.

Design: Observational study of a convenience sample of nurses' triage assessments of hospital-based obstetric patients.

Setting: A birth unit of a suburban hospital located in a large metropolitan region with approximately 5,200 births annually.

Planning and evaluating evidence-based perinatal nurse staffing.

Nurse staffing decisions are high-cost decisions. Having too few nurses may cause more mistakes or more episodes of missed care resulting in worse outcomes, increased pain, and additional suffering and health care costs. Having too many nurses increases health care costs.

Transfer from planned home birth to hospital: improving interprofessional collaboration.

Women's heightened interest in choice of birthplace and increased rates of planned home birth in the United States have been well documented, yet there remains significant public and professional debate about the ethics of planned home birth in jurisdictions where care is not clearly integrated across birth settings. Simultaneously, the quality of interprofessional interactions is recognized as a predictor of health outcomes during obstetric events. When care is transferred across birth settings, confusion and conflict among providers with respect to roles and responsibilities can adversely affect both outcomes and the experience of care for women and newborns.

Don't Rush Me . . . Go the Full 40: AWHONN's Public Health Campaign Promotes Spontaneous Labor and Normal Birth to Reduce Overuse of Inductions and Cesareans.

Don't Rush Me . . .

General influenza infection control policies and practices during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic: a survey of women's health, obstetric, and neonatal nurses.

Background: An evaluation of infection control practices was conducted following the release of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance regarding the care of pregnant women during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. This paper describes 9 general hospital practices.

Methods: A questionnaire was distributed electronically to 12,612 members of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN).

Influenza infection control practices in labor and delivery units during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

Objective: To assess the presence and usefulness of written policies and practices on infection control consistent with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) guidance in hospital labor and delivery (L&D) units during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

Setting: Online survey.

Participants: Of 11,845 eligible nurses, 2,641 (22%) participated.

Postpartum and neonatal nursing care during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

We describe select influenza infection control policies and practices related to postpartum and newborn care during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. In an online survey of obstetric and neonatal nurses, significantly more nurses indicated a written hospital policy supporting each of the practices during versus before the pandemic. The two practices least often implemented were temporary separation of healthy newborns from ill mothers (37.

Update on Chlamydia and gonorrhea screening during pregnancy.

Pregnant women in the United States are underscreened for chlamydia and gonorrhea, despite recommendations for broad testing. This puts women and infants at risk of complications from untreated infections. Nurses and other clinicians who care for pregnant women have a responsibility to be up-to-date in their knowledge of screening guidelines and to provide appropriate counseling to pregnant women based on their individual risk factors.

Contraception is health promotion.

Contraception can be considered a means of health promotion because when women control the timing of their childbearing, they, together with their health care providers, can ensure that they are healthy before conception, thereby minimizing risk of complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Ensuring that women have accessible and affordable contraceptive services takes on a new urgency in the current context of rising rates of maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States.

Nurses' perceptions of critical issues requiring consideration in the development of guidelines for professional registered nurse staffing for perinatal units.

Objective: To solicit input from registered nurse members of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) on critical considerations for review and revision of existing nurse staffing guidelines.

Design: Thematic analysis of responses to a cross-sectional on-line survey question: "Please give the staffing task force your input on what they should consider in the development of recommendations for staffing of perinatal units."

Participants: Members of AWHONN (N = 884).