Background: Midwives are the main providers of routine antenatal care services including the routine ultrasound examination in Norway. The ultrasound examination can be perceived by expectant parents not only as a medical examination but also as a social event facilitating attachment to their fetus. This study explores Norwegian midwives' experiences and views on the role of ultrasound in clinical management of pregnancy.

Methods: A qualitative study design was applied. Twenty-four midwives who all performed obstetric ultrasound examinations were recruited for focus group discussions and individual interviews. Data collection took place in 2015 in five hospitals in two different regions of Norway. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: Midwives described obstetric ultrasound examinations as very valuable although doing ultrasounds placed high demands on their operational and counselling skills. Increasing requests for ultrasound from pregnant women were mentioned. Advancements in ultrasound diagnosis were considered to have put the fetus in the position of a patient, and that pregnant women declining ultrasound could be viewed as irresponsible by some health professionals. Ethical concerns were raised regarding the possibility of pregnancy termination when fetal anomalies were detected. Fears were also expressed that prenatal diagnoses including those following ultrasound, might create a society where only perfect' children are valued. However, participants stressed that their intention in performing ultrasound was to optimize pregnancy outcome and thereby assist expectant couples and their unborn children.

Conclusions: Midwives in Norwegian maternity care services describe obstetric ultrasound as very valuable, playing a central role in pregnancy management by optimizing pregnancy outcomes. Although high demands are placed on operators' technical skills and counseling, midwives described performing obstetric ultrasound as very satisfying work. However, midwives believed that expectant parents' approach to the ultrasound examination, both its medical value and the precious images obtained of the fetus, could put extra strain on the midwives performing ultrasounds. The potential of ultrasound to detect fetal anomalies and the possibility that this may lead to termination of pregnancy, seemed to create some ambivalent feelings in midwives towards its use.

Objectives: Obstetric ultrasound is an important part of antenatal care in Vietnam, although there are great differences in access to antenatal care and ultrasound services across the country. The aim of this study was to explore Vietnamese health professionals’ experiences and views of obstetric ultrasound in relation to clinical management, resources and skills.

Design: A cross-sectional questionnaire study was performed as part of the CROss Country UltraSound study.

Setting: Health facilities (n=29) in urban, semiurban and rural areas of Hanoi region in Vietnam.

Participants: Participants were 289 obstetricians/ gynaecologists and 535 midwives.

Results: A majority (88%) of participants agreed that ‘every woman should undergo ultrasound examination’ during pregnancy to determine gestational age. Participants reported an average of six ultrasound examinations as medically indicated during an uncomplicated pregnancy. Access to ultrasound at participants’ workplaces was reported as always available regardless of health facility level. Most participants performing ultrasound reported high-level skills for fetal heart rate examination (70%), whereas few (23%) reported being skilled in examination of the anatomy of the fetal heart. Insufficient ultrasound training leading to suboptimal pregnancy management was reported by 37% of all participants. ‘Better quality of ultrasound machines’, ‘more physicians trained in ultrasound’ and ‘more training for health professionals currently performing ultrasound’ were reported as ways to improve the utilisation of ultrasound.

Conclusions: Obstetric ultrasound is used as an integral part of antenatal care at all selected health facility levels in the region of Hanoi, and access was reported as high. However, reports of insufficient ultrasound training resulting in suboptimal pregnancy management indicate a need for additional training of ultraso

OBJECTIVES: High-quality evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness is rarely available and relevant for health policy decisions in low-resource settings. In such situations, innovative approaches are needed to generate locally relevant evidence. This study aims to inform decision-making on antenatal care (ANC) recommendations in Rwanda by estimating the incremental cost-effectiveness of the recent (2016) WHO antenatal care recommendations compared to current practice in Rwanda.

METHODS: Two health outcome scenarios (optimistic, pessimistic) in terms of expected maternal and perinatal mortality reduction were constructed using expert elicitation with gynaecologists/obstetricians currently practicing in Rwanda. Three costing scenarios were constructed from the societal perspective over a 1-year period. The two main inputs to the cost analyses were a Monte Carlo simulation of the distribution of ANC attendance for a hypothetical cohort of 373,679 women and unit cost estimation of the new recommendations using data from a recent primary costing study of current ANC practice in Rwanda. Results were reported in 2015 USD and compared with the 2015 Rwandan per-capita gross domestic product (US$ 697).

RESULTS: Incremental health gains were estimated as 162,509 life-years saved (LYS) in the optimistic scenario and 65,366 LYS in the pessimistic scenario. Incremental cost ranged between $5.8 and $11 million (an increase of 42% and 79%, respectively, compared to current practice) across the costing scenarios. In the optimistic outcome scenario, incremental cost per LYS ranged between $36 (for low ANC attendance) and $67 (high ANC attendance), while in the pessimistic outcome scenario, it ranged between $90 (low ANC attendance) and $168 (high ANC attendance) per LYS. Incremental cost effectiveness was below the GDP-based thresholds in all six scenarios.

DISCUSSION: Implementing the new WHO ANC recommendations in Rwanda would likely be very cost-effective; however, the additional resource requirements are substantial. This study demonstrates how expert elicitation combined with other data can provide an affordable source of locally relevant evidence for health policy decisions in low-resource settings.

BACKGROUND: Women with a history of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are at increased risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Offspring from pregnancies complicated by HDP also have worse cardiometabolic status in childhood and young adulthood, but the offspring risk of clinical hypertension in adulthood is largely unknown.

METHODS: We studied 13,893 first-born adult offspring (49.4% female) who attended a structured population-based primary care visit (The Västerbotten Health Survey) at age 40 years in Sweden between 1994 and 2013. Data on maternal HDP were collected from a population-based birth register. We investigated the association between maternal HDP and the risk of adult offspring hypertension and worse cardiometabolic risk factor status utilizing multivariable poisson and linear regression models. We also conducted a sibling comparison, which inherently accounted for familial factors shared by siblings (N = 135).

RESULTS: Offspring participants of women with HDP (N = 383, 2.8%) had increased relative risk of hypertension (1.67, 95% confidence interval: 1.38, 2.01) and also higher mean body mass index, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and worse 2-hour 75 g oral glucose tolerance test result at age 40 years. No difference was observed for serum cholesterol. Point estimates for the cardiometabolic risk factors were attenuated in the sibling analyses.

CONCLUSION: Offspring born to mothers with a history of HDP are on an adverse cardiometabolic trajectory and should be considered as concomitant targets for primordial prevention of hypertension in the maternal post-pregnancy period.

Background: There is limited knowledge on the women’s experiences of pregnancy-related complications in Rwanda. This study aimed to investigate women’s experiences and perceptions of specific complications during pregnancy and delivery and the consequences of these complications on postpartum health and family situation.

Methods: Data were collected through individual in-depth interviews (N = 15). Participants who experienced complications such as postpartum haemorrhage, caesarean section due to prolonged labour/dystocia, pre-eclampsia, or fistula and who were 13–24 months postpartum were invited to participate in the study in July 2015. Interviews were held in Kinyarwanda, digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, translated into English, and analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: Most participants reported that they were previously unaware of the complications they had developed, and they claimed that at discharge they should have been better informed about the potential consequences of these complications. Most participants blamed the health care system as the cause of their problems due to the provision of inadequate care. Participants elaborated different strategies for coping with persistent health problems. Pregnancy-related complications negatively affected participants’ economic situation due to increased health care expenses and lowered income because of impaired working capacity, and participants expressed fear of encountering the same pregnancy-related health problems during future pregnancies.

Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrate how participants felt that inadequate health care provision during pregnancy, delivery, and the postpartum period was the source of their problems. Participants reported different coping strategies to improve their respective life situation despite persistent health problems. Women’s individual postpartum experiences need to be considered and actions taken at the policy level and also by the local community, in terms of the quality of antenatal and postpartum care services, and in sensitizing the local community about the existence of these complications and preparing the community to support the affected women.

Background: There is insufficient evidence regarding psychosocial factors and its long-term association with persistent pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain. The overall aim of this study was to investigate women with persistent pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain 12 years postpartum based on psychosocial and behavioural characteristics using the Swedish version of the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI-S) classification system.

Material and methods: This is a cross-sectional study based on a previous cohort. Data collection took place through a questionnaire. A total of 295 women from the initial cohort (n = 639) responded to the questionnaire giving a response rate of 47.3%. To determine the relative risk (RR) of reporting pain 12 years postpartum, a robust modified Poisson regression was used. This is the first study using the MPI-S as a predictive variable on women with persistent pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain.

Results: The MPI-S classification procedure was carried out on a total of n = 226 women, where 53 women were classified as interpersonally distressed (ID), 82 as dysfunctional (DYS), and 91 as adaptive copers (AC). Women in the ID and DYS subgroups had a relative risk (RR) of reporting persistent pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain 12 years postpartum that was more than twice as high compared to the AC subgroup (95% confidence interval (CI) in parenthesis): RR 2.57 (CI 1.76 - 3.75), p<0.0001 and RR 2.23 (CI 1.53 - 3.25), p<0.0001 respectively. Women in the DYS subgroup had more than 5 times increased risk of reporting sick leave the past 12 months compared to the AC subgroup (RR 5.44; CI 1.70 - 17.38, p=0.004).

Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that it is possible to classify women with persistent pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain 12 years postpartum into relevant clinical subgroups based on psychosocial and behavioural characteristics using the MPI-S questionnaire.

Objectives: Implementation of ultrasound in antenatal care (ANC) in low-income countries has been shown to increase pregnant women’s compliance with ANC visits, and facilitate detection of high-risk pregnancies. In Rwanda, as in other low-income countries, access to ultrasound has increased significantly, but lack of training is often a barrier to its use. The aim of this study was to investigate Rwandan health professionals’ experiences and views of obstetric ultrasound in relation to clinical management, resources and skills.

Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire study was undertaken between November 2016 and March 2017, as part of the CROss Country UltraSound Study (CROCUS). Data were collected at 108 health facilities located in both rural and urban areas of Rwanda, including provincial, referral, district and private hospitals as well as health centres. Participants were obstetricians (n = 29), other physicians (n = 222), midwives (n = 269) and nurses (n = 387).

Results: Obstetricians/gynecologists/other physicians commonly performed ultrasound examinations but their self-rated skill levels implied insufficient training. Access to ultrasound when needed was reported as common in hospitals, but available to a very limited extent in health centres. The vast majority of participants, independent of health profession, agreed that maternity care would improve if midwives learned to perform basic ultrasound examinations.

Conclusions: Barriers to provision of high quality ultrasound services include variable access to ultrasound depending on health facility level and insufficient skills of ultrasound operators. Physicians in general need more training to perform ultrasound examinations. Implementation of a general dating ultrasound examination seems to be a relevant goal as most health professionals agree that pregnant woman would benefit from this service. To further improve maternity care services, the possibility of educating midwives to perform ultrasound examinations should be further explored.

Objectives To investigate the prevalence of non-psychotic mental health disorders (MHDs) and the association between exposure to all forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy and MHDs. Design Cross-sectional population-based study conducted in the Northern Province of Rwanda and Kigali city. Participants and settings Totally, 921 women who gave birth <= 13 months before being interviewed were included. Simple random sampling was done to select villages, households and participants. Community health workers helped to identify eligible participants and clinical psychologists, nurses or midwives conducted face-to-face interviews. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics and bivariable and multivariable logistic regression modelling Results The prevalence rates of generalised anxiety disorder, suicide ideation and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were 19.7%, 10.8% and 8.0%, respectively. Exposure to the four forms of IPV during pregnancy was highly associated with the likelihood of meeting diagnostic criteria for each of the non-psychotic MHDs investigated. Physical, psychological and sexual violence, showed the strongest association with PTSD, with adjusted ORs (aORs) of 4.5, 6.2 and 6.3, respectively. Controlling behaviour had the strongest association with major depressive episode in earlier periods with an aOR of 9.2. Conclusion IPV and MHDs should be integrated into guidelines for perinatal care. Moreover, community-based services aimed at increasing awareness and early identification of violence and MHDs should be instituted in all villages and health centres in Rwanda. Finally, healthcare providers need to be educated and trained in a consistent manner to manage the most challenging cases quickly, discreetly and efficiently.

Objective: The aims to explore among pregnant women were their experiences of lifestyle counselling provided by a midwife in antenatal care, addressing health promotion with special focus on physical activity during pregnancy, and factors influencing the trustworthiness of counselling conducted by a midwife. Methods: This qualitative study collected data from 14 pregnant, primiparous or multiparous women in gestational week 35–36 using in-depth interviews. The data were collected in Sweden in 2015. Qualitative content analysis was applied. Results: The theme "Longing for fulfilment of individual needs and expectations" emerged during analysis, including four categories; "Being exposed to unsatisfying counselling"; "Appreciating supportive and trustworthy counselling"; "Wrestling with cultures", and "Dealing with physical activity in daily life". The results indicated that some participants experienced limited counselling that was characterized by lack of knowledge, support, and trustworthiness in the midwife. Other participants reported valuable encouragement and support by the midwife. Participants were longing for individual recognition instead of receiving general advice on physical activity that was designed for all pregnant women. Conclusions: Individual counselling on physical activity during pregnancy based on the participant's individual needs was desired. On the contrary, the participants could experience the midwife as having her own agenda, insufficient knowledge and primarily focusing on medical surveillance. There is a need of increased level of knowledge among midwives in antenatal care, regarding lifestyle and lifestyle change during pregnancy. This may enhance promotion of a healthy lifestyle for the pregnant woman during counselling.

Caesarean section (CS) has short and long term adverse health consequences, and should therefore only be undertaken when necessary. Risk factors such as maternal age, maternal body mass index (BMI) and fetal weight have been extensively investigated in relation to CS, but the significance of maternal height has been less explored in Sweden. The aim was to investigate the significance of maternal height on risk of CS in a representative, population-based sample from Sweden, also taking into account confounders. Data on singleton births in the Swedish Pregnancy Register 2011 to 2016 were collected, including women with heights of 140 cm and above, constituting a sample of 581,844 women. Data were analysed with epidemiological and biostatistical methods. Mean height was 166.1 cm. Women born outside Sweden were significantly shorter than women born in Sweden (162.8 cm vs. 167.1 cm, p < 0.001). There was a decreasing risk of CS with increasing maternal height. This effect remained after adjustment for other risk factors for CS such as maternal age, BMI, gestational age, parity, high birth weight and country of birth. Frequency of CS was higher among women born outside Sweden compared with Swedish-born women (17.3% vs. 16.0%), however, in a multiple regression model country of birth outside Sweden diminished as a risk factor for CS. Maternal height of 178-179 cm was associated with the lowest risk of CS (OR = 0.76, CI95% 0.71-0.81), whereas height below 160 cm explained 7% of CS cases. BMI and maternal age are established factors involved in clinical assessments related to birth, and maternal height should increasingly enjoy a similar status in these considerations. Moreover, when healthcare professionals are counselling pregnant women, taller stature should be more emphasized as a positive indicator for successful vaginal birth to increase pregnant women's confidence in giving birth vaginally, with possible positive impacts for lowering CS rates.