Ultrasound gel is a potential source of infection. Contamination occurs at the time of manufacture, with organisms that degrade parabens, which are commonly used as stabilizing agents. There are far-reaching implications for the infection control community.

Employing high fidelity simulations of obstetric emergencies for student midwives has great teaching and learning potential. Simulations can provide student midwives with a learning experience that facilitates knowledge application to midwifery practice. This article describes student midwives evaluation of a simulated obstetric emergency study day. Twenty-seven undergraduate student midwives participated in this pilot study. The main findings of this study revealed that students valued the opportunity to apply the theory they had learned into practice within a safe environment. The opportunity to work as a team was also appreciated by the students. Simulations can be incorporated into the midwifery curriculum as a teaching strategy to develop the decision making, communication and team working skills used when dealing with an obstetric emergency.

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This is an educational paper which aims to inform midwives of tools available to help them make appropriate provisional diagnosis of perinatal depression. A second aim of the paper is to increase midwives' awareness of the relatively newer diagnosis of antenatal depression (AND). Of additional clinical importance, midwives need to recognise that postnatal depression (PND) may be a continuation of AND. To date, screening for AND has received relatively little attention compared with PND, with the evidence-base supporting that the impact can be as severe. It is important for midwives to know that screening for AND can be undertaken using valid and reliable psychometric self-report depression screening questionnaires which have known validity characteristics and threshold cut-off scores. There are several of these tools available to help midwives make the decision about whether or not to refer the women to the mental health team. Current practice in the UK involves the midwife asking an initial short two-item ‘Whooley Question’ screen which, if indicates depression, can be followed up by the women completing a self-report depression screening questionnaire. To highlight their availability, a selection of valid and reliable psychometric self-report depression screening questionnaires are discussed herein, with it being important for midwives to develop a toolkit that can be given to women at clinics, in pamphlets, online or embedded into mobile applications.

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