Teaching Physiologic Birth in Maternal–Newborn Courses in Undergraduate Nursing Programs: Current Challenges

Abstract

For low-risk childbearing women, fewer technological interventions are associated with better physical and psychosocial outcomes; yet, the number of unmedicated physiologic births is decreasing. As a result, fewer undergraduate nursing students experience caring for women who choose physiologic birth, which presents a challenge for nurse educators and implications for preparing students to provide appropriate care for all childbearing women after the students graduate. This exploratory descriptive qualitative study was conducted among 150 randomly selected undergraduate nursing programs in the United States to explore the challenges of educating nursing students about low-intervention birth. Four themes described current challenges: lack of placement opportunities, education versus clinical practice, evidence-based support of physiologic birth, and the need for more research on pedagogical strategies that effectively educate future nurses to advocate for minimal intervention birth options for all women.

Evidence-Based Intrapartum Practice and Associated Factors Among Obstetric Care Providers Working in Public Hospitals of South Wollo Zone North-Central Ethiopia: An Institutional-Based Cross-Sectional Study

“…1 Intrapartum practice encompasses the time between the confirmation of true labor and the first, second, third, and fourth stages of labor, which the last one to two hours after the placenta is delivered. 2 Furthermore, evidence-based intrapartum practice is a successful technique for improving obstetric care quality. The WHO has declared that inadequate and harmful practices should be changed with evidence-based clinical practices.…”

Basic psychological needs: A framework for understanding childbirth satisfaction

“…Interventions are now ubiquitous in childbirth; normal, physiologic labor is no longer the norm. [95][96][97][98] The panoply of common interventions includes induction of labor, administration of synthetic oxytocin (Pitocin), continuous fetal monitoring, epidural, episiotomy, forceps delivery, and cesarean delivery. 99 The majority of women now experience some combination of these.…”

Educating Student Nurses Is a Wise Investment for Midwives

“…However, most maternity clinical rotations occur in interventive hospital settings that expose the students to the predominant medical model and could create the argument that the medical model should primarily be taught to nursing students. Maternity nursing faculty may question the wisdom of exposing students to the birth as normal paradigm while they are providing clinical experiences in a setting wherein birth is managed as an illness . But not everything has to be seen to be believed.…”

“…So, even without the benefit of diverse maternity nursing clinical experiences, the midwifery and medical models of care can be taught simultaneously. Teaching the medical model prepares students to function ably during their labor and delivery clinical experience and to be successful with maternal‐newborn content on their licensure examinations . Concurrently teaching physiologic birth in the context of the midwifery model may inspire motivated students to independently delve into the maternity nursing, midwifery, and obstetric literature so that they ultimately formulate their personal philosophies of childbearing.…”