The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

Born in the USA examines issues including midwifery and the safety of out-of-hospital birth, how the process of becoming a doctor can adversely affect both practitioners and their patients, and why there has been a rise in the use of risky but doctor-friendly interventions, including the use of Cytotec, a drug that has not been approved by the FDA for pregnant women. Most importantly, this investigation, supported by many troubling personal stories, explores how women can reclaim the childbirth experience for the betterment of themselves and their children."--Jacket.

This book investigates why women choose ‘birth outside the system’ and makes connections between women’s right to choose where they birth and violations of human rights within maternity care systems. Choosing to birth at home can force women out of mainstream maternity care, despite research supporting the safety of this option for low-risk women attended by midwives. When homebirth is not supported as a birthplace option, women will defy mainstream medical advice, and if a midwife is not available, choose either an unregulated careprovider or birth without assistance. This book examines the circumstances and drivers behind why women nevertheless choose homebirth by bringing legal and ethical perspectives together with the latest research on high-risk homebirth (breech and twin births), freebirth, birth with unregulated careproviders and the oppression of midwives who support unorthodox choices. Stories from women who have pursued alternatives in Australia, Europe, Russia, the UK, the US, Canada, the Middle East and India are woven through the research. Insight and practical strategies are shared by doctors, midwives, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists on how to manage the tension between professional obligations and women’s right to bodily autonomy. This book, the first of its kind, is an important contribution to considerations of place of birth and human rights in childbirth.

The most-popular midwifery textbook in the world! The sixteenth edition of this seminal textbook, Myles Textbook for Midwives, has been extensively revised and restructured to ensure that it reflects current midwifery practice, with an increased focus on topics that are fundamental to midwifery practice today. - Well illustrated to assist visual learning - Boxes highlighting significant information to aid study - Introduction, Aims of the chapter and Conclusion for each chapter - References, Further Reading and Useful websites to promote further learning - Glossary of terms and acronyms provide simple definition of more complex terminologies Additional online resources - Over 500 multiple-choice questions enable students to test their knowledge - Unlabelled illustrations help reinforce learning - Full image bank of illustrations to make study more visual and assist with projects. - Full colour illustrations now used throughout the book, in response to student feedback - Contains many new chapters, some of which are authored by members of the multi-professional team - Up-to-date guidance on professional regulation, midwifery supervision, legal and ethical issues, risk management and clinical governance - Recognition that midwives increasingly care for women with complex health needs, in a multicultural society - Examination of the dilemmas involved in caring for women with a raised body mass index - Chapter on optimising care of the perineum for women with perineal trauma, including those who have experienced female genital mutilation - Guidance to support the trend for midwives to undertake the neonatal physical examination of the healthy term infant - Additional coverage of basic neonatal resuscitation

This work supplied English midwives and English women with a compendium of information for the Continent and from the author's own thirty years of experience.

This unique and bestselling handbook provides midwives with everything they need for successful practice. It contains concise, practical and expert guidance on all aspects of the midwife's role, from pre-conceptual advice to the final post-natal examination of the mother and baby.