Home » News » Baden-Württemberg Funds Expansion of Midwife Delivery Rooms in Hospitals: More Freedom of Choice for Pregnant Women.

Baden-Württemberg Funds Expansion of Midwife Delivery Rooms in Hospitals: More Freedom of Choice for Pregnant Women.

In order to further develop and expand midwifery delivery rooms in Baden-Württemberg hospitals, the state is providing funding totaling around 500,000 euros.

A midwife delivery room is an obstetric service in a clinic where midwives look after healthy women during childbirth. The midwives work there independently and on their own responsibility. Good and close cooperation with the medical team is necessary. Corresponding offers are already available at five clinic locations in Baden-Württemberg.

Room for a natural birth

“Midwife delivery rooms in hospitals are an important additional service in obstetric care. They strengthen the personal responsibility of the midwives and offer women the space for a natural birth with safe medical care in the background,” said Dr. Ute Leidig, State Secretary in the Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Integration, on the occasion of the publication of the call for funding.

The aim of the state funding is to create even more midwifery delivery rooms in Baden-Württemberg hospitals with an obstetrics department and thus to spread the offer more widely. A midwife delivery room expands the range of obstetrics offered by a hospital and is not intended to replace the medically managed delivery room. “In addition to the additional offer for women, midwifery delivery rooms can also promote interdisciplinary cooperation in hospitals,” says State Secretary Dr. sorry

More freedom of choice for pregnant women

Practice has shown that a midwife delivery room increases the freedom of choice of pregnant women for their birth care, as the German Health Portal (DGP) reported back in 2020. The Bonn University Women’s Clinic was the first university clinic in Germany to introduce the model: “After eleven years, we can look back on a high level of satisfaction among women giving birth, midwives and doctors,” explains Prof. Dr. Ulrich Gembruch, DGGG expert and managing director of the center for obstetrics and gynecology at the University Hospital Bonn.

Delivery in the midwifery delivery room is faster and requires fewer interventions, particularly fewer episiotomies and second-degree perineal tears, but at the expense of a greater incidence of higher-grade birth injuries. The midwives in particular reported higher job satisfaction – this is a pleasing result in view of the rampant shortage of midwives.

It is not possible without medical obstetricians

The forwarding rate to the doctor-led delivery room was 50.3% in the multi-part research project from 2010 to 2017 for midwife-led births at the University Hospital Bonn. “These figures impressively show how important comprehensively available medical obstetricians are for the safety of mother and child during childbirth,” emphasized Prof. Dr. Anton J. Scharl, President of the DGGG.

So while low-risk births can be accompanied by midwives after strict pre-selection, any deviation requires the presence of medical midwives. This ranges from the application of epidural anesthesia (PDA), which is often requested, to pathological birth processes such as heavy bleeding, breech presentations, premature births, vaginal surgical births and caesarean sections. Overall, the proportion of healthy pregnant women with an unremarkable course of pregnancy and expectation of an uncomplicated birth in Germany is around 20% according to conservative estimates.

With a 50% forwarding rate to the doctor-run delivery room, 90% of births also require medical obstetrics. It is also important that a birth in the midwifery delivery room is a birth in a clinic. The results on safety for mother and child cannot be extrapolated to out-of-hospital obstetrics.

Information on the call for funding

With the call for funding, the ministry is implementing a recommendation from the Round Table on Obstetrics from the last legislative period. The obstetrics round table met from 2017 to 2020 and developed various measures to further develop obstetrics in the country. In this context, the members of the Round Table also spoke out in favor of promoting midwifery delivery rooms.

Public, non-profit or private hospitals with an obstetrics department in Baden-Württemberg can apply for funding. Even hospitals that have already set up a midwifery delivery room can apply for funding for quality assurance and the further development of their concept.

The maximum subsidy amount is 50,000 euros for the entire duration of the project. The projects must be completed by June 30, 2025 at the latest. A total of around 500,000 euros in funding is available. The application deadline is August 15, 2023. The call for funding and the application form are on the Website of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and Integration available.

2023-05-19 00:53:58
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