What's new in midwifery - 31st March 2021

COVID-19

Two that appeared in a Medline alert I have running for Long COVID:

Kotlar B; Gerson E; Petrillo S; Langer A; Tiemeier H. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal and perinatal health: a scoping review. Reproductive Health. 18(1):10, 2021 Jan 18.

Vardhelli V; Pandita A; Pillai A; Badatya SK. Perinatal COVID-19: review of current evidence and practical approach towards prevention and management. European Journal of Pediatrics. 180(4):1009-1031, 2021 Apr.

Then, a systematic review looking at intrauterine fetal death in women who had tested positive for COVID on admission for delivery. 

A systematic review from Chinese researchers, investigating caesarean or vaginal delivery to prevent vertical transmission of COVID.  

A systematic review looking at the impact of COVID onpregnancy outcomes.

Other research

A Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Consult series review on intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy. 

An NIHR review looking at screening all nulliparous pregnantwomen as a way to predict adverse outcomes.

A report of the MAGPOP (name alert!) trial comparing dinoprostone with balloon catheter for cervical ripening.

A report of a trial looking at the use of a Foley catheter with misoprostol for cervical ripening.

Two Cochrane reviews:

Zinc supplementation for improving pregnancy and infant outcome.

Umbilical vein injection for management of retained placenta.

Then, some government or NHS related things:

The best start for life.  This is the report from a group chaired by Andrea Leadsom MP, with six areas for action to improve health outcomes for babies, from conception to the age of 2.  Read the Guardian coverage.

Extra NHS expenditure on maternity services, in the wake of the investigations into events in Shrewsbury, is covered in this article in the Independent (free registration needed).

In the media

Channel 4's Dispatches series included a programme about black women being 4 times more likely than white women to die in childbirth or shortly afterwards.   The programme is on catch up until near the end of April. 

Last but not least

This BMJ blog post about tokophobia, an extreme fear of pregnancy and childbirth.  

 

Acknowledgements: King’s Fund Library Health Management and Policy Alert, Evidence Alerts, things I saw on Twitter.