Doula care improves maternal care, yet barriers exist to incorporating doula care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate interest and barriers to doula care. Overall, 508 women, 26–35 years of age (54.5%), White/Caucasian (89.8%), and married (88.6%), completed this study. Most reported previous birth (97.6%). Respondents would feel comfortable” (73.2%)
and more confident (54.9%) with doula care at birth, and 57.9% reported their provider would be supportive of doula care. Only 39.0% expressed benefits to doula care during pregnancy compared to 72.6% at birth and 68.1% during postpartum. Most would hire a doula if health insurance covered some of the costs. Despite the recognized benefits and support of doula care, cost-associated barriers exist to the incorporation of doula care.

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze Contact Hour and 1.0 hour of CNE.

In this column, the authors discuss the vital role birth workers can play in shaping policy that affect the birthing people and families they serve. The authors review recent policy changes that have tremendous potential to improve maternal child health outcomes. Additionally, they provide concrete suggestions regarding how birth workers can actively engage in government affairs at the local and state levels. 

Learners may earn .50 Lamaze Contact Hours.

This homestudy includes two articles published in JPE 31.4: Improving Our Maternity Care Now Through Midwifery and Improving Our Maternity Care Now Through Community Birth Settings. 

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze contact hour and 1.0 hour of CNE through CBRN, approved provider #15932 for reading the articles and completing the quiz.

This contribution reprints the Executive Summary from a technical report issued by the National Partnership for Women & Families within its larger Improving Our Maternity Care Now project. This project identifies the priority of continuing the long, challenging work of maternity care system transformation, while also increasing access to high-performing care models that can help meet current urgent, dire needs for equitable high-quality care now. The Midwifery report is the first in a series of four reports on these care models, which share distinctive features. They reliably provide highly appropriate services that minimize both underuse of beneficial practices and overuse of unneeded, often harmful practices. They prioritize relationship-based, whole person care that builds trust, confidence and resilience and helps meet the varied needs of birthing families. They incorporate skills and knowledge to support the innate physiologic processes of birthing people and their fetuses/newborns. They achieve remarkable results for consequential outcomes relative to standard maternity care. And childbearing people greatly desire access to these forms of care relative to current access and use. Community-based versions offering trustworthy, respectful, culturally-congruent care are especially powerful. The midwifery report includes recommendations for federal policymakers, state policymakers, and private sector decision makers to increase access to midwifery care. It was carried out in partnership with the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives, and the National Black Midwives Alliance. Access the full project through https://www.nationalpartnership.org/improvingmaternitycare/. 

The project is supported by the Yellow Chair Foundation and is reprinted with permission. Reproduced with permission of the National Partnership for Women & Families. This contribution reprints the Executive Summary from a technical report issued by the National Partnership for Women & Families within its larger Improving Our Maternity Care Now project. This project identifies the priority of continuing the long, challenging work of maternity care system transformation, while also increasing access to high-performing care models that can help meet current urgent, dire needs for equitable high-quality care now. The Community Birth Settings report (encompassing birth center and planned home birth care) is the second in a series of four reports on these care models, which share distinctive features. They reliably provide highly appropriate services that minimize both underuse of beneficial practices and overuse of unneeded, often harmful practices. They prioritize relationship-based, whole person care that builds trust, confidence and resilience and helps meet the varied needs of birthing families. They incorporate skills and knowledge to support the innate physiologic processes of birthing people and their fetuses/newborns. They achieve remarkable results for consequential outcomes relative to standard maternity care. And childbearing people greatly desire access to these forms of care relative to current access and use. Community-based versions offering trustworthy, respectful, culturally-congruent care are especially powerful. The community birth settings report includes recommendations for federal policymakers, state policymakers, and private sector decision makers to increase access to these settings. It was carried out in partnership with the American Association of Birth Centers, American College of Nurse-Midwives, Birth Center Equity, National Association of Certified Professional Midwives, and National Black Midwives Alliance. Access the full project through https://www.nationalpartnership.org/improvingmaternitycare/. The project is supported by the Yellow Chair Foundation. Reproduced with permission of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

The authors examined the stressors of mothers between 2 and 22 months postpartum, the association of stressors with social factors, and when stressors were heightened. Surveys of 372 women covered social factors and postpartum stressors (Overload, Changes after pregnancy, Baby care, Working mother concerns, Low support, and Isolation). Overload was the most frequent stressor compared to the other stressors, p<.001. Full-time employment and number of children were the social factors most frequently associated with stressors. Overall, social factors were most highly associated with Working mother concerns. Findings indicate that full-time employed mothers could benefit from workplace and community support. In particular, guidance from health care professionals and childbirth educators about managing stress could aid mothers, especially those with first children

Authors: 
Lorraine O. Walker, EdD, MPH, RN
Nicole Murry, PhD, RN
Heather Becker, PhD

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze Contact Hours and 1.0 hour of CNE through the California Board of Registered Nursing.

Every childbearing person has the right to learn about all options for perinatal care provider and birth setting. To ensure an informed decision about their preferred birth plan, information should be provided either preconceptionally or in early pregnancy. Personal preferences and risk status should be considered in decision-making. Numbers of births in birth centers have doubled over past decade to almost 20,000 births per year. The evidence shows that childbearing people who participate in birth center care, even if they have only birth center prenatal care, experience better outcomes including lower rates of preterm birth, low birth weight births, and cesarean birth, and higher rates of breastfeeding when compared to people with similar risk profiles who receive typical perinatal care. 

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze Contact Hour and 1.0 hour of CNE through CBRN.

Dr. Chumley will present the state of current research and practice relating to the overlap of substance use disorders (SUDs) and perinatal health. Topics will include effects of drugs of abuse on gestational health, as well as the relative safety and efficacy of medications used to treat SUDs during pregnancy and breastfeeding. 

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze Contact Hour and 1.0 hour of CNE through CBRN for viewing the webinar and passing the quiz.

Awareness of obstetric violence is growing both on social media platforms, amongst birth professionals and scholars, and in expecting families too. How can we as childbirth educators help our students? Using examples from my own practice, this session will illustrate ways that childbirth educators can help students not only recognize obstetric violence but also advocate for themselves. Helping students to know the standards to which they should be holding their providers is imperative, because helping students put a name to the behavior is the beginning of accountability for obstetric violence. Childbirth educators have a unique opportunity to reach expecting families to help them raise expectations for their own care and know how to respond when they are not met. 

Participants may earn .50 Lamaze Contact Hours.

In this 30-minute session, participants will dive into flipped classrooms and learn how they can implement flipped learning in their childbirth education classes. Flipped Classroom (FC) brings flexibility to childbirth education (CBE) while keeping it interactive. It allows participants to take an active role in learning. In FC there is lower-order learning tasks before or after face-to-face live meetings and the meeting time can be used for higher-order interactive engagement elements. In Online FC (OFC) the live meeting is online via videoconferencing bringing even more flexibility to the CBE. 

Participants may earn .50 Lamaze Contact Hours.

Pregnancy loss touches each of our lives and as childbirth educators we need skills to hold space for it. In this 60 minute webinar, Naima Beckles will: guide participants through an analysis of the most recent stats on perinatal loss lead a discussion on how, for Black birth givers in particular, American racism is a risk factor for perinatal loss share strategies for acknowledging previous losses in our birth classes, and shine a light on several women of color storytellers who share their first-hand experiences with perinatal loss Participants will leave this webinar with a new perspective and new skills for being present to a very sensitive and difficult topic. 

Participants may earn 1.0 Lamaze Contact Hour and 1.0 hour of CNE through the CBRN.

Lamaze members came together on for this collaborative workshop centered around building your birth business. Learners gained insights into business and marketing basics and viewed examples of how their colleagues are running successful birth businesses.

Speakers:

• Nancy Bonilla, PMP, HCMP, LCCE
• Kiana Ayers, RN, IBCLC, LCCE
• Andrea Lythgoe, LCCE
• Lisa Greaves Taylor CCCE, CD(DONA), LCCE
• Wendy Trees Shiffer, MS, LCCE, FACCE
• Alexandra Mills