Continuous Labor Support for Every Woman
Last year at the AWHONN (Association Women's Health Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses) national convention I spoke with two other colleagues, Catherine Ruhl and Paris Maloof-Bury on Labor Support for Every Woman: Changing Unit Culture. This is a topic that the three of us are very passionate about. We are also huge AWHONN supporters and volunteer for AWHONN in many different ways.
In late summer we were contacted by AWHONN because they were interested in revision of the Position Statement that was originally approved in April of 2000 and revised and retitled "Nursing Support of Laboring Women" and re-approved in June 2011. We were very excited about working together again this 'new' project and met with AWHONN in August and then by synchronizing our calendars and our time zones (Cathy lives and works in New Mexico, Paris lives and works in California and I live and work in Florida) set up some meetings where we could hash out the position statement. We used Google docs and went back and forth with ideas and sharing to get the best possible document to send back to AWHONN in October.
During this time I was also working with the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative on the development of the PROVIDE Initiative that would be rolled out to hospitals across Florida to work together to decrease the primary cesarean rate for Nulliparous, Term, Singleton, Vertex deliveries. This Labor Support for Every Woman AWHONN Position Statement will be very helpful for hospitals working to decrease their cesarean rates.
I am pleased to report that the newly revised Position Statement, Continuous Labor Support for Every Woman was just published in JOGNN this month! Here is a link to the article: http://www.jognn.org/article/S0884-2175(17)30482-3/pdf
Nurses often ask me how do I get involved with AWHONN? I give this advice, first, join. Go to the chapter meetings in your area, go to the section meetings in your state and then try to go to the national convention every year. Reach out, ask if you can help and you will be surprised who will take you up on your offer! Follow your passion. Meet with other colleagues and don't be afraid to make new friends outside of your organization!
p.s. Let me know what you think of the position statement!
