Pregnancy care of the low risk woman: the community‐hospital interface

Abstract

Aims to determine the extent to which women suitable for community-based antenatal and intrapartum care will require hospital contact. Reports on an historical cohort study of low risk women who underwent standard shared care and for whom the records for both pregnancy and delivery were complete at The City Hospital and University Hospital, Nottingham. Concludes that the shift to community-based care aims to bring many improvements to the overall care and satisfaction of pregnant women. However, it may not reduce the workload of hospital-based services to a great extent as the majority of women, even if low risk at booking, will require some hospital input at some time during pregnancy or labour.

Consultation, Referral, and Collaboration Between Midwives and Obstetricians: Lessons From New Zealand

“…Twenty of these studies included only prescreened, “low‐risk” women, and lacked enough commonality with the New Zealand midwifery client population to make comparisons. 12–32 Twelve of the studies were focused on place of birth (either home or birth centre), so the referral data related to transfer to a referral hospital rather than to the consultation rate 12,13,17,22–24,26–30,34 . The women in these studies had been prescreened as being low‐risk, and the transfer to hospital rate varied from 15% 17 to 66% 19 .…”