According to an international review of maternity services, women who are cared for by midwives rather than GPs or obstetricians are less likely to lose their babies within the first six months of their pregnancies.
In a huge analysis of 12,000 women in 4 countries, researchers argue that women who were supported by midwives were much less anxious than those treated by other health care providers. As a result, they experienced fewer miscarriages.
Obstetricians are unsurprisingly annoyed with the findings.
The best part of the study?
Women being looked after by midwives were less likely to be admitted to hospital during pregnancy, episiotomies or require pain medication and were more likely to have vaginal births, feel in control during labour and better able to initiate breastfeeding.
As the most comprehensive study of this kind ever, the analysis also showed there was no significant difference between the women who were looked after by midwives or obstetricians when it came to foetal deaths after six months gestation, length of labour, induction, intervention, premature births and admissions to neonatal intensive care units.
For all the midwives out there, go on...say it....
WE TOLD YOU SO.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3mb4k9
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4 comments:
Please feel free to say 'I told you so' as much as possible!! Sarah - MIDWIFE!!
"According to an international review of maternity services, women who are cared for by midwives rather than GPs or obstetricians are less likely to lose their babies within the first six months of their pregnancies."
This study demonstrates nothing of the kind. Read the study. It did NOT compare midwife care with care by physicians. It compared "midwife led" team care with a other forms of team care usually including midwives. Virtually every patient in both arms of the study was seen by midwives AND doctors.
The study is a piece of junk. It tells us nothing about anything.
As a current patient of a midwife I can definitely say I've experienced very little anxiety. She is informative, but calm about her delivery. No scare mongering, and because she takes up to 90 min with me during a visit, I have plenty of time to talk about things that may be bothering me.
Ditto Amy Tuteur (love your comments on the Parker-Pope blog too!).
Also it is a classic selection skew error. Women with uncomplicated low risk pregnancies are more likely to only see midwives in the early months. Surprise surprise they're also more likely to have miscarriages!
Obstetricians should rejoice at this study (well if people had the brains to understand it). Because despite getting all the highest risk cases, the really SICK pregnant women and those with babies who are most at risk - they STILL do equally well in the later part of pregnancy and birth itself! Onya OBSs!
Go off and polish your fake trophies midwives.
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