Helen Spiby
University of Nottingham
Helen Spiby is Professor of Midwifery at the University of Nottingham, UK. Current research interests include early labour, preparation for labour and birth and the wellbeing of midwives.
Helen has a longstanding commitment to developing research capacity in midwifery and supporting evidence based practice.
Background: Early labour calls to maternity units are a key locus of dissatisfaction for childbearing women. Although staying at home has benefits for women, some feel uncared for or unwelcome when they are asked to delay travelling to the maternity unit and may struggle to manage their pain at home. Midwives must build rapport and make accurate assessments over the telephone, without the visual and non-verbal cues they would use in face-to-face care.
This research is the first to explore the views of midwives in the UK and US on the potential benefits and challenges of using video-calling technology to support and assess women in early labour.
Methods: a qualitative design utilised data collected between 2016- 2017 through audio-recorded focus group discussions (UK: 3; US: 5) with clinical midwives and interviews with midwifery managers (UK: 3; US: 1); followed by thematic content analysis.
Findings: Our preliminary analysis shows that midwives see potential benefits of a video-calling service,including increased reassurance for women and their partners and supporting accurate assessment of labour progress by providing midwives with visual clues.Midwives suggested that there may be particular benefits for younger women and for those with limited English. However, some midwives had significant concerns about introducing video-calls into early labour care. These included doubts about the reliability of the technology, especially in the health care context,maintaining confidentiality, privacy issues, legal issues and appearing professional, empathetic and focused during video-calls. Discussion between midwives about which women had Internet access raised concerns about equality.In some settings, implementation would require consideration of documentation and the development of new policies.
Discussion: Findings from the completed analysis will be discussed in the context of maternity care provision in the UK and US, drawing on evidence from the use of video-calling in other specialities.
Conclusion: Our findings, whilst novel in themselves, will inform tests of the feasibility of video-calling for conversations between women in early labour and midwives. Any pilot will need to consider how to prepare midwives, as well as women, for the introduction of a new communication technology at this key time.
1. Studies that integrate knowledge from a range of scientific approaches and/or perspecti , Studies of and contributions to practice and/or service organisation
