Speaker: Jessica Brumley
Facilitator: Caitlin Goodwin
Midwifery has played a critical role in maternal and newborn care throughout our history, yet its integration into the healthcare system has been marked by challenges and transformation. This presentation explores the historical trajectory of midwifery. The current landscape highlights a growing recognition of midwifery’s benefits, including improved maternal outcomes, reduced interventions, and enhanced patient-centered care. Despite this progress, barriers such as restrictive regulations, inconsistent legislative policies, and disparities in access persist.
Looking ahead, the future of midwifery integration depends on policy reform, interprofessional collaboration, and public awareness to strengthen midwives’ role in addressing the maternal health crisis. A strong professional association is critical in advancing the midwifery agenda and strengthening the profession.
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Speaker: Prima Kusrini and Karita Aulia Tama
Facilitator: Alifina Izza
Background: Adolescent pregnancy is a global health concern that affects the well-being of both mothers and newborns. Adolescent pregnancy is linked to risk factors that contribute to adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes.
Objective: This review aims to ascertain the factors contributing to adverse adolescent pregnancy outcomes.
Method: The primary databases for the review were PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct. From 2020 to 2024, 1103 papers were identified, of which 121 were chosen for full-text review after thoroughly screening and eliminating duplicates. Fifteen studies were included in the review.
Result: An analysis of fifteen articles indicated that adolescent pregnancy is substantially associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, affected by factors including inadequate education, psychological and social pressures, low socioeconomic status, poor nutritional health, harmful behaviors during pregnancy, an unfavorable social environment, and insufficient antenatal care. Improving primary health services for adolescent pregnancy is essential, including the delivery of early sexual education and contraception options.
Conclusion: Adolescent pregnancy is often associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Improving the use of adolescent maternal health services, along with the execution of focused sex education programs and contraceptive methods in families, educational institutions, and primary health care centers, is essential for reducing the incidence of adolescent pregnancies.
Key message: Adolescent pregnancy is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. By identifying the characteristics that lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes in teenagers, it is anticipated that health education can be delivered to both adolescents and their familial or social contexts to avert these problems.
Speaker: Bronwyn Rideout
Facilitator: Zalfa Dinah Khairunnisa
Background: During pregnancy and early parenting, autistic adults contend with increased sensory demands and services ill-suited for their needs. How Aotearo’as unique maternity system fares with this cohort is unknown due to the dearth of local data.
Methods: 15 autistic people who gave birth in New Zealand between 2012-2022 were recruited through social media. Participants predominantly identified as female but represented varied backgrounds and childbearing experiences. Using Kathy Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory, verbal and written semi-structured interviews were conducted by the lead author, an autistic midwife-researcher, utilising inclusive practices.
Results: Autistic birthing experience in Aotearoa shares many of the same hallmarks found in international research, including heightened sensory sensitivities and late diagnosis. Participants reported varied benefits from continuity of care models but also demonstrated significant self-determination in navigating childbearing by prioritising their physical health, mental well-being, or the needs of others during decision-making and support-seeking.
Conclusions: This study has highlighted various challenges autistic parents negotiate during childbearing and the transition to parenthood. Midwifery-led, continuity-of-care models can ameliorate some challenges, but decision-making was chiefly informed by the participant’s awareness of their individual physical, mental, and domestic needs. The findings will assist in the provision of enabling and empowering care to autistic clients and can improve the morbidity and mortality rates seen in the broader autistic population.
Speaker: Yvonne Meyer
Facilitator: Celine Lemay
Sages-femmes dans certaines publications. C’est le cas pour l’inscription de notre activité professionnelle au patrimoine immatériel UNESCO où, dans l’annonce en français, le mot sage-femme est absent du titre. Comment sont présentées les sages-femmes ailleurs ? Neuf documents ont été repérés qui ont pour titre l’art, les soins, la pratique, les sciences ou la profession de sage-femme. Les résumés de ces documents seront présentés, ainsi que l’analyse réalisée, basée sur les critères de soins centrés sur le patient (Rycroft-Maloine, 2004). Les résultats montrent que toutes ces formulations sont polysémiques et qu’elles n’ont pas exactement la même portée. Par contre, toutes présentent haut et fort les sages-femmes et ce qui les caractérise. Si UNESCO avait titré « Les soins de sage-femme : connaissances, savoir-faire et pratiques », les sages-femmes seraient visibles partout dans le monde francophone.
The theme of the intervention is motivated by a regrettable problem of visibility of midwives in certain publications. This is the case for the inclusion of our professional activity in UNESCO’s intangible heritage list, where, in the French announcement, the word sage-femme is absent from the title. How are midwives presented elsewhere? Nine documents have been identified that deal with the art, care, practice, science or profession of midwifery. Summaries of these documents will be presented, along with the analysis carried out, based on the criteria of patient-centred care (Rycroft-Maloine, 2004). The results show that all these formulations are polysemous and do not have exactly the same scope. However, they all make a strong case for midwives and what characterises them. If UNESCO had published the title « Les soins de sage-femme: connaissances, savoir-faire et pratiques » (‘Midwifery: knowledge, skills and practices’), midwives would be visible throughout the French-speaking world.
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