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Introduction Rising rates of caesarean section (CS) is an issue of particular concern. Recently, there has been research supporting Vaginal Births After Caesarean (VBAC), which is controversial. In Greece, over half of births in the country are by CS, placing Greece among countries with the highest CS rates. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and the factors associated with VBACs and to compare the maternal/neonatal outcomes with a 'non-caesarean' control group. Methods The data were evaluated and retrospectively gathered on archived singleton births, from medical records of a midwifery-led team, between May 2006 and May 2013. The target group of the study included mothers with a previous CS, who had a second birth. The sample consisted of 71 VBAC women and 583 who had normal spontaneous vaginal delivery (NSVD) as the 'non-caesarean' control group. Results The duration of labour was longer for the VBACs compared with first-time mothers who gave birth naturally (for duration 481-720 min, 27% vs 10.3%, respectively), episiotomy was more common for VBAC (20.7% vs 7.9%), and epidural analgesia was more often for VBAC (68.4% vs 10%). The percentage of 1-min Apgar score in the range 0-7 in the VBAC group was 5%, and there was no significant difference in women who had NSVD (3.6%). The Apgar score in the 5th minute was always above 8 for both groups. Conclusions Severe maternal and neonatal complications are infrequent, and therefore the necessity arises for further continuous studies to ascertain the safety of VBAC.

Introduction This paper is a report of a systematic review to identify and analyze studies of the measurement of empathy in midwives and other health professionals. Empathy has been recognized as an important factor in patient care, with positive outcomes for both patients and health professionals. There is a debate on the definition of empathy, on its measurement and on the possibility of improvement. Methods Searches were made of the CINAHL, SCOPUS, PubMed and PsychINFO databases using the terms empathy, clinical, midwifery, nursing, medical students, measurement, and health professionals, singly or in combination, to identify literature published in English between 2002-2015. The included papers were critically reviewed and a narrative synthesis was conducted. Results In all, 22 papers met the inclusion criteria by studies that were conducted to measure the levels of empathy in a variety of health professionals and students. Their scores were analyzed in correlation with their sociodemographic factors. Conclusions Despite numerous studies, many correlations but also differences exist, indicating the complexity of empathy and the need to further study it.

Migrant and refugee pregnant women constitute a highly vulnerable group to mental disorders. The rates of mental illness of migrants and refugees are higher than those of host populations, with migrant women being more likely to suffer from prenatal depression. A Policy Paper was developed based on a literature review conducted in Medline, Scopus and Google Scholar. Filtering criteria were: year of publication (2002–2017), study topic relevance, and English language. A total of 63 documents were identified. Most of the documents were scientific papers while a large number of documents were reports of EU committees and networks on migrant issues or annual reports of international bodies. From the analysis of existing evidence, four major topics emerged for the perinatal health of migrant women: 1) Prevalence and risk factors for antenatal mental disorders, 2) Assessment of mental disorders, 3) Healthcare professionals’ training on supporting migrant and refugee pregnant women, and 4) Interventions for the mental health of migrant women. Midwives and other members of interdisciplinary teams have to be trained and culturally competent to successfully meet the needs of migrant and refugee pregnant women.

INTRODUCTION Maternal smoking constitutes a significant risk to the fetus and is associated with multiple adverse pregnancy outcomes. Despite this, an estimated 6–19% of women in Europe smoke during pregnancy. We conducted a pilot study to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of the clinical practice recommendations of the 2017 Tobacco Cessation Guidelines for High-Risk Groups (TOB-G) for pregnant and postpartum women in an outpatient obstetrics setting. METHODS The guideline recommendations were tested on a sample of 67 pregnant women recruited from obstetrics outpatient visits. Pregnant women who smoked received three behavioural counselling sessions through a combination of face-toface and telephone consultations by a midwife trained in the TOBG tobacco treatment recommendations. Smoking status was assessed at 1 month and at 6 months follow-up via self-report. RESULTS Seventy-one per cent of pregnant smokers screened agreed to participate in the counselling intervention. Pregnant women participants (mean age, M=31.73 years, SD±6.09) smoked for an average of 12.2 (SD±6.55) years. Women reported smoking an average of 4.82 (SD±4.14) cigarettes per day with 51% reporting smoking within 30 minutes of waking, an indicator of higher levels of nicotine addiction. Rates of smoking abstinence among pregnant women undergoing the counselling intervention were 43.9% and 45.6% at the 1 month and at 6 months follow-up, respectively. Replacing those participants with missing data as smokers, the quit rates were 26.9% and 38.8% at the 1 month and 6 months follow-up, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The counselling intervention delivered to pregnant women who smoke was feasible to implement in a manner that was consistent with the TOB-G guideline recommendations in an outpatient obstetrics setting. Future work should focus on increasing uptake of evidence-based tobacco treatment recommendations in outpatient obstetrics settings.

Introduction It is observed that delivery does not completely eliminate the risk of developing symptoms of preeclampsia, as well as its impending complications. The postpartum period is often associated with a high risk of developing preeclampsia, eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. Yet, there is neither an established standard, nor specific guidelines for peripartum fluid management. Our purpose is to study during the first four days of the postpartum period the differences in fluid balance on: normal pregnancies, pregnancies with preeclampsia and pregnancies with oedema and proteinuria. Methods The setting was the Gaia private maternity clinic in Athens, where 100 women in the postpartum period took part in the study and were requested to fill in a data collection-sheet, specially developed for the study. They were recruited between January 2014 and November 2014 and were divided into three groups. Group I consisted of all normal pregnancies, Group II those with oedema and proteinuria, and Group III those with preeclampsia. The demographic and clinical characteristics of the women and fetuses were initially recorded. Subsequently, daily records of fluid balance, as well as body weight, were kept for four days after labor. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the demographic data of the sampled women. We compared the fluid balances among the three groups using t-test association and one-way Anova. Results The mean age of the women was 32.48±4.38 years. Out of a total of 100 women, 59 of them had a normal pregnancy (Group I), 24 developed oedema and proteinuria (Group II) and 17 developed preeclampsia (Group III). All three groups had a positive fluid balance on the first day postpartum and only the first group had a negative cumulative fluid balance from the second day postpartum and onwards. The second group despite having started to discard a small volume of fluid, from the second day postpartum, the balance remained positive throughout the next two days. The third group however, had a negative fluid balance only during the fourth day after labor. Conclusions ur results indicate a difference in the kinetics of fluids in women with preeclampsia, compared to those that had a normal pregnancy and postpartum period. Consequently, there appears to be a need for more rational management and follow up on fluid balance throughout labor.

Introduction The Birth Satisfaction Scale (BSS) is an important screening instrument that is used with mothers during the postpartum period for the identification of postnatal birth satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to validate and adapt the Greek version of the BSS to test its sensitivity, specificity and predictive values. Methods Childbearing women (n=310) were recruited from the perinatal care registers of the Maternity Departments of 3 Hospitals of Athens municipality (public Maternity Departments) in 2014. Inclusion criteria included fluency in spoken and written Greek language, within 1-4 postpartum days, and delivery of a healthy infant. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) on the 30-items on the BSS revealed 7 orthogonal factors (KMO measure of sampling adequacy=0.856 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity=2999.806, df=435, p