Women's lived experience of compassionate midwifery: Human and professional.

OBJECTIVE: To develop an understanding of women's lived experience of compassionate midwifery DESIGN: A qualitative study using the principles of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Data was collected during interviews with 17 women who identified themselves as having received compassionate midwifery care. FINDINGS: Women participants' experience of compassionate care from midwives was experienced through a sense of a midwife Being With them, Being in Relationship with them and Empowerment. Women were also aware of the way midwives were able to Balance potentially conflicting aspects of their work, in order to provide compassionate care. Two other themes which emerged through extensive analysis of the data related to how women set their experience of compassion in the context of their personal suffering and that compassion made a difference. These themes will be reported separately. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The unique contribution of this study was to provide a window into the nature of women's lived experiences of compassionate midwifery and thus building, understanding around the qualities of compassionate midwifery and its impact on women. The findings are important because they challenge assumptions that compassion is ill-defined and therefore difficult to teach. On the contrary, compassionate midwifery was easily identified by women participants and had the features of an effective intervention for relieving their suffering. A dynamic model of Compassionate Midwifery in Balance has been proposed, providing a much-needed tool to inform practice, education and policy. Further research will build on this work by focussing on women in varied circumstances, environments and cultures and on understanding the lived experience of compassionate midwifery from the midwife's perspective.

A concept analysis of compassionate midwifery.

AIM: To report a concept analysis of compassionate midwifery. BACKGROUND: Recently, compassion has been incorporated into United Kingdom nursing and midwifery language through strategy, policy, recruitment and education. Professional standards direct midwives to practise compassionately therefore the concept of compassionate midwifery exists, although this has yet to be explored as a concept in the UK or internationally. An understanding of what constitutes compassionate midwifery has the potential to increase midwifery knowledge and improve practice. DESIGN: Concept Analysis. DATA SOURCES: Literature from 1990-2015 was searched using MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO and ETHOS. Grey literature and examples of everyday usage of the concept were searched using Google. METHODS: An adapted model of evolutionary concept analysis. RESULTS: Explanations of compassionate midwifery were absent in the literature therefore the gathered data were evaluated in relation to elements of the compassion process: recognition of suffering, emotion, motivation and action. Compassionate midwifery is defined as the interrelations of authentic presence, noticing suffering, empathy, connectedness/relationship, emotion work, motivation to help/support, empowering women and alleviating suffering through negotiation, knowledge and skills. Antecedents and consequences were also identified and depicted in a schematic representation of the concept. CONCLUSION: This concept analysis provides a unique examination of compassionate midwifery and starting point for reflection on practice, education and further analysis. Empirical studies will provide the potential to take the process further by studying the experience of compassionate midwifery from different perspectives. A theory of compassionate midwifery will develop as new findings emerge.

Using support workers to release time for qualified midwives in maternity care.

Maternity services must meet the demands of an increasingly diverse and rapidly growing population. Recent policy changes mean midwives are taking on roles formerly performed by doctors, leaving maternity support workers to undertake many traditional midwifery tasks. This article discusses how MSWs can facilitate choice by helping midwives deliver a flexible, personalised service to childbearing women and how the MSW role has developed.

Rapid assembly of photosystem I monolayers on gold electrodes.

Photosystem I (PSI) has drawn widespread interest for use in biomimetically inspired energy conversion devices upon extracting it from plants or cyanobacteria and assembling it at surfaces. Here, we demonstrate that a critically dense monolayer of spinach-derived PSI must be formed on an electrode surface to achieve optimal photocurrents, and we introduce a new method for preparing these dense PSI monolayers that reduces the time required for assembly by approximately 80-fold in comparison to that for adsorption from solution. This method consists of applying a vacuum above the aqueous PSI solution during assembly to concentrate PSI and precipitate it into a thick layer onto the surface of various self-assembled monolayers or directly onto the electrode surface. Rinsing with water yields a dense monolayer of PSI that draws approximately 100 nA/cm2 of light-induced current from the gold electrode in the presence of appropriate mediators.