What's new in midwifery - research - 11th July 2024

Some things it might be useful to know about.  Subscriptions or a librarian will be needed for access to some.

Anti seizure medications

Research into the risk of autism after prenatal topiramate, valproate, or lamotrigine exposure.  These are three anti seizure medications.   All three are in the BNF (assuming valproate = sodium valproate) and all three have safety warnings about use in pregnancy.  The BNF entry for topiramate reports the MHRA are conducting a review and there is a news item on the MHRA website reporting this.

For interest, there is also an updated practice guideline from three American organisations, published in Neurology.

Metformin

Research into the use of metformin in early pregnancy.

Induction for hypertension of pregnancy

Oral misoprostol, compared with oral misoprostol and oxytocin, in women induced for hypertension of pregnancy. 

Episiotomy

Lateral episiotomy compared with no episiotomy.

Pain relief after episiotomy.

Magnesium sulfate (sulphate) as a fetal neuroprotective agent

There is an updated Cochrane review on magnesium sulfate as a fetal neuroprotective agent given to individuals at risk of preterm birth, with an open access article about it, and the actual review itself available in the Cochrane Library.

RSV vaccination in pregnancy

Another updated Cochrane review, on respiratory syncytial virus vaccination in pregnancy for improving infant outcomes.

Water births

The Guardian reports a recent research study into the safety of water births.   It does not link to the research, but I think it's this open access study from the splendidly named POOL study.   

Lactation

Does relaxation therapy improve lactation?   

RCOG Green Top Guidelines

No. 31, on the care of the small for gestational age or growth restricted fetus. 

Labour and delivery nurses

A concept analysis of psychological trauma in labour and delivery nurses.

What's new in midwifery - 11th July 2024

Some recent (or fairly recent) reports and statistics that might be useful:

Smoking status at time of delivery, NHS Digital, statistics for quarter 4 of 2023/24

British Association for Perinatal Medicine, draft Framework for Practice: Routine pulse oximetry testing for newborn babies  (PDF file)

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists - Our Impact, July 2022 - December 2023

Nursing and Midwifery Council Independent Culture Review, Nazir Afzal and Rise Associates, July 2024 (PDF file)

Royal College of Midwives, How to fix and improve maternity safety, May 2024 (PDF file).

Nuffield Trust project report on Maternity & neonatal independent senior advocates (a rapid mixed methods evaluation)

Acknowledgements: King's Fund Library alerts, Rotherham Hospital Library and Knowledge Service Latest Health News.

Escherichia coli

An outbreak of E. coli infection in the UK, linked to salad leaves which ended up in prepacked sandwiches and similar foods from several retailers, makes me revisit a post from 2015 (that long ago!) and update it.  Here are some resources, first about Shiga toxin producing E. coli (STEC), which is causing the problem in the UK, and then about E. coli and E. coli infection in general.

There is a United Kingdom Health Security Agency press release about the current STEC outbreak in the UK.

Public Health Scotland have information specifically about STEC, as does the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Then there is general E. coli and health information from the United Kingdom Health Security Agency, and information from NHS Scotland (NHS Inform) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And then information in EcoliWiki, about non pathogenic E. coli.  PortEco, the producer of this site, is described in this 2014 paper in the annual Database issue of Nucleic Acids Research (if you use the data resource, it is accepted practice to cite the paper, and not the website where the resource lives).   EcoCyc is a database for E. coli K-12 MG1655, performing "literature-based curation of the entire genome" and covering transcriptional regulation, transporters, and metabolic pathways.   There is an overview in the Encyclopedia of Life, which includes articles, data and maps.

A page of results for a search of the National Center for Biotechnology Information site for sources from all NCBI databases includes a direct link to the Taxonomy database.    It includes a PubMed link which gives you absolutely everything, so this PubMed link, specifically for Shiga toxin producing E. coli papers from 2024, might be more effective.

Systematic review search filter for Ebsco APA PsycInfo

I needed one of these but couldn't find one.   I did find a multi-database filter for Ovid, including APA PsycInfo, from Canada's Drug Agency, CADTH, so modified it to use in EbscoHost.

I could find no relevant publication types to match line 1 of the original filter, so replaced it with a modification of line 17, and then omitted line 17, so my filter has 22 and not 23 lines.    I changed Ovid's adj3 into N2 (and changed any other adjn in the same way).

This is the result.   I have not validated or tested this filter, although the original one is labelled as having had "pragmatic" testing.

S1 MR (systematic review or meta analysis)

S2 DE "systematic review" OR DE "meta analysis"

S3 ((systematic* N2 (review* or overview*)) or (methodologic* N2 (review* or overview*)))

S4 ((quantitative N2 (review* or overview* or synthes*)) or (research N2 (integrati* or overview*)))

S5 ((integrative N2 (review* or overview*)) or (collaborative N2 (review* or overview*)) or (pool* N2 analy*))

S6 (data synthes* or data extraction* or data abstraction*)

S7 (handsearch* or hand search*)

S8 (mantel haenszel or peto or der simonian or dersimonian or fixed effect* or latin square*)

S9 (met analy* or metanaly* or technology assessment* or HTA or HTAs or technology overview* or technology appraisal*)

S10 (meta regression* or metaregression*)

S11 (meta-analy* or metaanaly* or systematic review* or biomedical technology assessment* or bio-medical technology assessment*)

S12 (medline or cochrane or pubmed or medlars or embase or cinahl)

S13 (cochrane or (health N1 technology assessment) or evidence report)

S14 (comparative N2 (efficacy or effectiveness))

S15 (outcomes research or relative effectiveness)

S16 ((indirect or indirect treatment or mixed-treatment or bayesian) N2 comparison*)

S17 (multi* N2 treatment N2 comparison*)

S18 (mixed N2 treatment N2 (meta-analy* or metaanaly*))

S19 umbrella review*

S20 (multi* N1 paramet* N1 evidence N1 synthesis)

S21 (multiparamet* N1 evidence N1 synthesis)

S22 (multi-paramet* N1 evidence N1 synthesis)

S23 S1 OR S2 OR S3 OR S4 OR S5 OR S6 OR S7 OR S8 OR S9 OR S10 OR S11 OR S12 OR S13 OR S14 OR S15 OR S16 OR S17 OR S18 OR S19 OR S20 OR S21 OR S22