This Week in Maternity - Abortion laws & New research

In the News - Alabama passes law banning abortion

Legislation passed in Alabama is the most restrictive abortion bill in the US. It makes carrying out an abortion at any stage in pregnancy illegal even criminalizing abortion in cases of rape and incest. Doctors carrying out the procedure could face up to 99 years in jail.

Abortions would only be legal in cases where the mother’s life is in danger or if the fetus has a fatal condition. Many groups and organizations are planning to challenge the bill.

There are several countries around the world where there are also restrictions or bans on abortions including Northern Ireland, Malta, Philippines and Poland.

​https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/abortion-ban-alabama-bill-countries-strictest-laws-punishments-prison-a8916496.html

Research Articles 

Safety culture can positively impact surgical outcomes

This study into the influence of hospital safety culture on surgical outcomes highlights the positive impact safety culture can have. Those hospitals that reported a positive safety culture were significantly associated with lower risk of postoperative morbidity. The study concludes:
‘Hospital safety culture can influence certain surgical patient outcomes. Improving the safety culture within a hospital can represent a previously unrecognized approach that can be leveraged to strengthen surgical quality improvement efforts at the hospital level.’

The study can be found here.

Translating Maternal Mortality Review into Quality Improvement Opportunities in Response to Pregnancy-Related Deaths in California

An article has been published looking at improvement opportunities from the maternal mortality review in California. The study looked at readiness, recognition and response allocating data from 203 pregnancy related deaths into one of the 3 categories. Opportunities for improvement relating to each category were identified:

• Readiness – helping women to be prepared and knowledgeable about pregnancy and childbirth
• Recognition – Need for clinicians to better recognize risk factors, signs and symptoms for more accurate diagnosis
• Response – improved coordination of care, better timing of treatment and improvement in follow up care

Concluding that ‘Nursing leadership is necessary to support and guide national, statewide, and local efforts to improve the quality of maternity care through the implementation of quality improvement at the system, facility, clinician, and patient levels.’
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Read the study here.