**Please note this seminar has changed location to Franklin-Wilkins Building, B5**
Caroline Homer, Distinguished Professor of Midwifery, University of Technology Sydney; Visiting Professor, Kings College London, is giving a seminar on midwifery continuity of care.
Midwifery continuity of care means care is provided by the same midwife or by a small group of midwives. This type of care is also referred to as ‘one-to-one midwifery’; ‘caseload midwifery’ or ‘midwifery group practice’. Continuity of carer is also used sometimes to describe ‘independent midwifery’ where midwives work in self-employed practice outside of the public health service.
The Cochrane Review of Midwife-Led Continuity of Care includes 15 randomised controlled trials involving 17,674 mothers and babies. The findings showed a range of benefits with no adverse effects compared with other models. Women who received midwife-led continuity of care were more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth and less likely to have epidural analgesia, episiotomies or instrumental births. Women were less likely to experience a preterm birth and they were there was less all fetal loss before and after 24 weeks plus neonatal death.
Observational studies now show similar findings. For example, our recent evaluation of the Albany Midwifery Practice; a group that provided a high level of midwifery continuity of care over more than a decade showed positive outcomes for women and babies. This practice cared from particularly socially disadvantaged women and a high proportion of women from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups.
Policy in many countries, including the UK, states that midwifery continuity of care should be available to all women. The new WHO antenatal guidelines recommend that midwife led continuity of care should be provided to women in settings with well-functioning midwifery programs. Why is it that it is still not the mainstream model of care for every woman? Why is it so hard to provide what clearly women want, has benefits for midwives and for organisations? Is it really ethical now to not provide midwifery continuity of care to all women?
This presentation will summarise the evidence and discuss the barriers and strategies to bring about widespread change and scaling up of this essential public health intervention.
Professor Caroline Homer, biography:
Professor Homer is a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Health at UTS, Sydney, and visiting Professor at King’s and has recently joined the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery International Advisory Board.
Professor Homer is also Associate Head for the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in Nursing and Midwifery and Assistant Secretary General (Midwifery) for the Global Network of World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centres for Nursing and Midwifery. The Global Network has 45 collaborating Centres from all regions of the world, and we will be discussing potential collaboration in global health.
UTS is an active member in the recently formed Academic Health Science Partnership with UNSW, WSU, the two Local Health Districts in the region and 7 Research Institutes. These are a similar infrastructure to the CLAHRC. Professor Homer is leading one of the recently accredited Clinical Streams – Maternal, Newborn and Women’s Health, and there is a cross cutting implementation science stream in the partnership.As part of this work, there will be development of training which they hope will include a masterclass in Implementation and Improvement Science with national and international colleagues.