Women Construct Their Birth Narratives and Process Unplanned Cesarean Births Through Storytelling.

Objective: To examine birth narratives of primiparous women who experienced unplanned cesarean births to improve nursing care.

Design: Descriptive, qualitative.

Setting: The family/newborn units of a large teaching hospital in the Northeast United States.

Effects of Connective Tissue Massage on Pain in Primiparous Women After Cesarean Birth.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of connective tissue massage to reduce postoperative pain in primiparous women on Postoperative Day 1 after unplanned cesarean birth.

Design: A randomized controlled trial with three groups: intervention (Group 1), control or standard care (Group 2), and individualized attention (Group 3).

Setting: Family/newborn units of a large teaching hospital in the Northeastern United States.

Innovative strategies for 21st century perinatal nursing education.

The birthrate in the United States has been steady for the past few years with childbearing women being older, less likely to be married, better educated, and more likely to be an immigrant than were childbearing women of their mothers' generation. Women giving birth in the United States today are increasingly likely to experience a cesarean birth and/or an induction of labor. These changes in the demographic and experience of childbearing women occur at the same time that the learning style of nursing students is also changing.

Simulation stimulates learning in a childbearing clinical course.

Preparing nursing students to become integral members of today's health care team presents educators with unique challenges in both classroom and clinical settings. This study examined the effectiveness of adding high-fidelity simulation to a childbearing clinical course. Our systematic research addressed the importance of evaluating the outcomes of using simulation on both knowledge acquisition and clinical competency.

Cluster subtypes appropriate for preventing postpartum smoking relapse.

Objective: While the majority of women quit smoking either before or during pregnancy, 60 to 80% relapse in the postpartum period. The objective of this research was to examine postpartum women who quit smoking during their pregnancies and to determine the predictive factors for relapse in the postpartum period by identifying different subgroups that predict risk of relapse.

Method: One hundred forty four postpartum women who were abstinent at the time of delivery were recruited.