The Journal focuses on midwifery issues and women's health, it has a readership of midwives and others involved in pregnancy and childbearing, both in New Zealand and overseas.The Journal is printed once each year (December) and uses electronic article based publishing so that papers are published and disseminated as soon as possible. The advantages of article based publishing are:• Articles are processed more quickly • Articles can be disseminated electronically making them readily available• Improved ability to cite immediately without the need to wait until an issue is complete and then printed.• Improved global availability as each paper is provided with a DOI and put onto the NZCOM Journal website 3 months after first circulation Within electronic article based publishing the editors build each issue as an "issue in progress" from papers that have been submitted and accepted for publication. Once an issue is complete it is printed.The Journal welcomes original research, literature reviews; exemplars/practice stories/case studies, audits, student, and research methodology articles. In general, articles should be between 500-4000 words. It is important that articles submitted for review, have not been published previously in any form.The expectation regarding publication of any of these items is that they protect confidentiality where necessary, and that evidence of an ethical process of consent has been undertaken; similarly, confirmation that copyright permission has been obtained for any quoted materials (see section on copyright). All articles are subject to double blind peer review and the editors reserve the right to make a final decision regarding publication of each article.
ARTICLE FORMATArticles should be submitted electronically with double line spacing and a left hand margin of 3 cm and a size 12 font size. The article should be submitted as an electronic file copy in a WORD document or RTF file.Authors should use the following section headings: Abstract, Key words, followed by the introduction and further subheadings-dependent on the type of article -to structure the article and state the word count. Diagrams, tables, and photographs, should be labelled and supplied as computer generated items. Where these are sent separate from the text, the author/s should indicate where they should be positioned in the article.In addition, authors are requested to provide the following details in a separate "Author information" document. This will not be sent to the reviewers.• Name and qualifications• Occupation (current area of practice/expertise)• Email address for correspondence during the review process, and day time phone number.
• Declaration of interestsIndicate which contact details (corresponding author email address) can be published if the journal accepts the article. Where the article is co-authored, these details should be provided for all authors. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all named authors have agreed to submit the article for publication.
SUBMISSIONArticles shou...