Preferences of Recent Mums in Remote and Rural Areas for Type of Intrapartum Care: A Discrete Choice Experiment.

Background And Objectives: Pregnant women living in rural areas considering their preferred place of birth may have to 'trade-off' travel time/distance and other attributes of care (e.g. the full choice of birthplace options is rarely available locally).

The Perception of Women in Rural and Remote Scotland About Intrapartum Care: A Qualitative Study.

Background: The views of mothers are important in shaping policy and practice regarding options for intrapartum care. Mothers in rural and remote areas face unique challenges accessing services, and these need to be well understood. Therefore, our aim was to understand the compromises that women who live in remote and rural settings, more than 1 h from a maternity unit, face regarding intrapartum care.

The buck stops here: midwives and maternity care in rural Scotland.

Objective: To explore and understand what it means to provide midwifery care in remote and rural Scotland.

Design: Qualitative interviews with 72 staff from 10 maternity units, analysed via a case study approach.

Setting: Remote and rural areas of Scotland.

Midwives' competence: is it affected by working in a rural location?

Introduction: Rising health care costs and the need to consolidate expertise in tertiary services have led to the centralisation of services. In the UK, the result has been that many rural maternity units have become midwife-led. A key consideration is that midwives have the skills to competently and confidently provide maternity services in rural areas, which may be geographically isolated and where the midwife may only see a small number of pregnant women each year.

Competencies and skills for remote and rural maternity care: a review of the literature.

Aim: This paper reports a review of the literature on skills, competencies and continuing professional development necessary for sustainable remote and rural maternity care.

Background: There is a general sense that maternity care providers in rural areas need specific skills and competencies. However, how these differ from generic skills and competencies is often unclear.