Nursing Global Conference

A significant part of maternal health care is midwifery nursing and provides comprehensive care to a woman in terms of pregnancy, birth, and postnatal periods. Today in this lecture, we would take the underpinning core values guiding the major principle of the midwifery practice while emphasizing the safety, empathetic, and individualized approach that should be offered to the woman with the baby.

Preconception and antenatal are part of the major components of midwifery nursing. This is basically a program wherein midwives work closely with pregnant women to monitor her health as well as the development of the fetus. The approach encompasses routine check-ups and educating the pregnant woman on prenatal health and discovering risk factors that may significantly affect the pregnancy. Being preventive in approach, it reduces the chances of complication both in labor and delivery for mother and baby. Therefore, in most cases, midwives discuss with pregnant women nutritional issues, exercises, and lifestyle choices thought to be beneficial for a healthy pregnancy and empower her through resultant decisions over her care.

They support the mother physically and emotionally during labor and childbirth. They help allow for the natural progression of the mother's labor, guiding the mechanisms and positions for pain relief and safety. Expertly observing a potential complication during the process, they ensure that interventions save time when necessary. Being present with expertise makes a big difference and builds trust and confidence in the experience for the mother-positive-informative and empowering.

Another very important area under midwifery is postpartum care. In such cases, the midwife helps the mother recover, breastfeed, and also take care of the newborn. They guide mothers about changes that may take place both physically and psychologically, besides helping women cope up with this new role. Another area of postpartum care is observation over the newborn's condition to guarantee it is feeding well, and education of parents about baby care. There have always been midwives who work in tandem with other health caregivers to ensure full care of mothers and infants about this transition.

This session shares best practice in midwifery practice with respect to the most appropriate methods of communication, developments in the sphere of maternal and infant health, and the need for mothers and families to be empowered and supported through the birthing journey. Implementing these best practices would ensure that the mother and baby are given excellent person-centered care resulting in improved birth experiences and future well-being.

These guidelines are intended to support midwives in providing caring, evidence-based, and responsive antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care to the health, dignity, and well-being of the mother and her newborn.