Laid-back breastfeeding: knowledge, attitudes and practices of midwives and student midwives in Ireland.

Background: Despite concerted efforts by policy developers, health professionals and lay groups, breastfeeding rates in Ireland remain one of the lowest in world, with 63.6% of mothers initiating breastfeeding at birth, dropping to 37.6% of mothers breastfeeding exclusively on hospital discharge.

Principles of risk decision-making.

Risk management decisions in public health require consideration of a number of complex, often conflicting factors. The aim of this review was to propose a set of 10 fundamental principles to guide risk decision-making. Although each of these principles is sound in its own right, the guidance provided by different principles might lead the decision-maker in different directions.

Disconnection: Exploring transfer from midwifery-led to consultant-led care a phenomenological study of women's views.

Background: Understanding women's feelings during the transfer process can illuminate women's perspectives thus minimising the risk for postnatal psychological and emotional morbidity, and inform midwifery practice.

Aim: To explore the meaning women ascribe to their feelings when transferred from an environment emphasising a social model of pregnancy and birth in a Midwifery Led Unit, to a contrasting, more 'medicalised' setting of a Consultant Led Unit.

Methods: The study adopted an idiographic focus, by conducting semi-structured interviews with new mothers.

Joy, guilt and disappointment: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experiences of women transferred from midwifery led to consultant led care.

Background: Irish maternity services are predominantly medicalised and consultant led, therefore women who choose midwifery led care (MLC) do so in the context of limited birth choices. Transfers to consultant led unit (CLU) for consultant led care (CLC) can be unpredictable and can affect women's birth experiences. This study provides an in-depth exploration of women's experiences of transfer fromMLC to CLC during late pregnancy or labour.

Women's preferences for childbirth experiences in the Republic of Ireland; a mixed methods study.

Background: How women experience childbirth is acknowledged as critical to the postnatal wellbeing of mother and baby. However there is a knowledge deficit in identifying the important elements of these experiences in order to enhance care. This study elicits women's preferences for the most important elements of their childbirth experiences.

Breaking from binaries - using a sequential mixed methods design.

Aim: To outline the traditional worldviews of healthcare research and discuss the benefits and challenges of using mixed methods approaches in contributing to the development of nursing and midwifery knowledge.

Background: There has been much debate about the contribution of mixed methods research to nursing and midwifery knowledge in recent years.

Data Sources: A sequential exploratory design is used as an exemplar of a mixed methods approach.

'Not enough people to look after you': an exploration of women's experiences of childbirth in the Republic of Ireland.

Objective: Women's experiences of childbirth have far reaching implications for their health and that of their babies. This paper describes an exploration of women's experiences of childbirth in the Republic of Ireland.

Design: A qualitative descriptive study consisting of focus group interviews (FGIs) identified important aspects of women's childbirth experiences.

Women's experiences of labour and birth: an evolutionary concept analysis.

Aim: the aim of this paper is to identify the core attributes of the experience of labour and birth.

Methods: a literature search was conducted using a variety of online databases for the years 1990-2005. A thematic analysis of a random sample of 62 of these papers identified the main characteristics of the experience of childbirth.

The complexities of documenting clinical information in long-term care settings in Australia.

Clinical nursing documentation, written, verbal or supported by technology, is being affected by both the worldwide "information explosion" and budgetary constraints. In Australia, the necessity of documenting complex care needs and treatment plans in older adult care settings has become more imperative because funding levels and sources are frequently tied to these documents. As a consequence, the statutory requirements for documentation have become a significant driving force in shaping nursing practice.