gms | German Medical Science

About this meeting

• Editorial “Midwifery Research – Women in Focus”
• Words of welcome “HGH e. V. is a sponsor of the 3rd International Conference!”
• Words of welcome on behalf of the editorial board
• Keynote
• Review Process for the presentations at the 3rd International Conference

Editorial

Midwifery Research – Women in Focus

Dear Colleagues,

The 3rd International Conference on Midwifery Research focusing on “Midwifery Research – Women in Focus” will be a new highlight of our young learned society. A strong contribution comes from Professor em. Ellen Hodnett, a renowned and internationally acclaimed researcher from Canada. In her keynote speech, she shares her knowledge concerning the difficulties in implementing evidence based care during birth. She does this by describing research on the challenges, successes and also failures in the transfer of theoretical knowledge into practice. At the very beginning of the conference, it becomes clear that midwifery research must not only focus increasingly on single obstetrical interventions, but it must also focus on successful theory-practice transfer. The introduction of external evidence in obstetrical practice, adapted to regional and local circumstances, is therefore both a task for practice and for science. In her presentation, Claudia Oblasser takes up methodical aspects of midwifery research via an example of a randomized controlled feasibility study on the subject of improving the muscles of the pelvic ground. She thus shows the need to determine the feasibility of such a study prior to its execution. In Professor Valerie Fleming's presentation she discusses the expectations of pregnant women concerning their first birth. She particularly takes into account the time dimension, by interviewing the participants of the study at four different moments of their pregnancy. In her presentation, Dr. Gertrud Ayerle also takes the viewpoint of the pregnant woman: Together with her project team, she uses focus groups to determine in more detail the preferences and deficits that pregnant women, mothers and midwives perceive concerning care by midwifes in Germany. From this work, measures for practice and also subjects for research can be derived. An important task for midwives and doctors is food consultation during pregnancy and in the infant's first year of life. Help can be found in the food recommendations of the Network “Gesund ins Leben” (healthy into life). The degree to which these recommendations are actually used in consultation by midwives and doctors is presented by Katharina Reiss in her presentation, which is the last of the conference. The presentations are accompanied by a poster session of 14 posters, which are presented in 10-minute presentations to interested attendees and are subsequently discussed. The abstracts of the posters are also contained in these proceedings, which are also the 2016 supplement of the journal “Zeitschrift für Hebammenwissenschaft”.

We are proud to be able to offer you this high quality programme for the 3rd International Conference and thank all scientists, students and experts from practice whose contributions have enabled us to set up this programme. We are particularly glad that students and also graduates from study courses on midwifery and associated subjects use this platform in order to present their scientific work. We are also pleased and proud that guests from neighbouring countries and also from Australia and Sudan have joined this conference. I would like to point out here, that presentations in German will be simultaneously translated into English.

Finally our particular thanks go to our organization team Annika Bode, Andrea Villmar, Sue Travis, Ivonne Rauer and Gabriele Krüger for the successful organisation of the conference in the past months and weeks and for the smooth running of the conference here in Fulda. This conference would not have been possible without their great volunteer work – many thanks!

In the name of the Board Members I wish you inspiration and enjoyment when reading these proceedings and during the 3rd International Conference of the DGHWi.
 

In the name of the Board
Rainhild Schäfers
 

Übersetzung: Dr. Giorgio Greening, Darmstadt, Deutschland

Words of welcome

HGH e. V. is a sponsor of the 3rd International Conference!

Dear Colleagues, dear Researchers and Midwifery Students,

the International Conference of the German Society for Midwifery Research (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hebammenwissenschaft [DGHWI]) takes place for the third time. One could say: all good things come in threes as everything is going well at this point in time. It is good that midwives in Germany have established a professional research society. We can no longer do without this expertise. Good is the internationally shaped programme which shows, how researchers support practice. Good is also, that the conference has established itself as a fixed size in the appointment books of the professionals working in intrapartum-care. This meeting provides us with new impetus that supports and motivates us in our daily practices.

I am particularly pleased that the presenters originate from various countries with their experiences. Thus similar research questions in different models of care can be observed and findings exchanged. Already the opening with Professor Ellen Hodnett brings the focus to the key question of our profession: Is an evidence-based framework able to inform intrapartum care? Or do we get into schemes which oppose the individuality of the mother-to-be? The balancing act between individual counseling and care on the one hand, and the recommendations from evidence-based research on the other hand are a potential area of conflict, from which we cannot withdraw ourselves. This is only one example, how research and practice influence each other mutually.

I would like to thank all people responsible and the board of the DGHWi under the leadership of Professor Rainhild Schäfers for their valuable work and whish all presenters as well as participants a knowledgeable day.
 

Ursula Jahn-Zöhrens
1. Vorsitzende der Hebammengemeinschaftshilfe(HGH) e. V.
 

Übersetzung: Michaela Michel-Schuldt, M.Sc., PhD student University of Technology Sydney, Deutschland/Australien

Words of welcome on behalf of the editorial board

Dear Reader,

The planning and preparation of the 3rd International Conference on Midwifery Research focusing on “Midwifery Research – Women in Focus” was quite a lengthy process. The elaboration of the programme and its execution during the conference was enabled not only by the Board Members and the office of the DGHWi, but also by strongly involved DGHWi Members. Important preparatory work was the call for abstracts, publicity for the event, processing of the abstracts and the vitae of the authors, communication and negotiation of the contracts with the authors, the recruitment of peer reviewers and the organisation of the review process, the development of the conference programme, the concept and layout of the conference proceedings and the supplement for the journal “Zeitschrift für Hebammenwissenschaft”.

We received 20 abstracts for this conference, and we chose four of them for lectures and more than ten for poster presentations. We are happy and thankful for this strong show of interest by the professional public. We expect about 100 participants, with most coming from Germany, but also international participants for example from Switzerland, Canada, Australia and Sudan. The supplement for the Zeitschrift für Hebammenwissenschaft (Journal of Midwifery Science) will contain both the abstracts of the lectures and of the posters. It will be available both in a printed version and as a pdf file on the website of DGHWi e. V. As in the past, the printed version can be ordered from the editorial office of the DGHWi journal.

Furthermore, both the abstracts and the supplement will be permanently available on the GMS online portal “German Medical Science” and can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/dghwi2016/. The portal “German Medical Science” is the interdisciplinary portal of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF). It was set up by a co-operation between the German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIDMI) and the German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED). The portal offers free access to high-ranking, quality-checked professional articles, abstracts and expert opinions in the field of medicine and midwifery.

The bibliographic description of a given abstract as a print or online version can be found at the end of every abstract.

We would again like to point out that the citations of the online publications contain a “DOI” address. This acronym stands for “Digital Object Identifier”, which clearly identifies a text and its location in the internet. This “DOI” can be inserted in the search option of http://www.doi.org/ in a browser, which enables the abstract to be found directly. Since websites can change, this is a clear advantage for authors, because the abstracts can be stored individually. Authors' abstracts with their permanent identification are thus indefinitely retrievable.

We wish you an inspiring 3rd International Conference!
 

Dr. Gertrud M. Ayerle und Elke Mattern M.Sc.
Editorial board
 

Übersetzung: Dr. Giorgio Greening, Darmstadt, Deutschland

Keynote

Ellen Hodnett

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Kanada

Implementing Best Practices in Intrapartum Care: What Can We Learn from Others' Successes and Failures?

Hodnett E. Implementierung Bester Praxis in die Betreuung von Gebärenden: Was können wir vom Erfolg und Misserfolg anderer lernen? Z Hebammenwiss (J Midwifery Sci). 2016;04(Suppl.01):S5-6. Parallel veröffentlicht in: 3. Internationale Fachtagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hebammenwissenschaft (DGHWi). Fulda, 12.02.2016. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2016. Doc16dghwiK1. DOI: 10.3205/16dghwi19, URN: urn:nbn:de:0183-16dghwi197
Frei verfügbar unter: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/dghwi2016/16dghwi19.shtml

Dr. Ellen Hodnett holds a B.S.N. from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and an M.Sc.N. and PhD (Institute of Medical Science) from the University of Toronto. Until her retirement in 2014, she was a Professor in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing in the University of Toronto.  Currently she is a Professor emerita. In 2015 she was appointed Ombudsperson for the University.

In 1996, Dr. Hodnett was appointed to the first endowed chair in nursing research in Canada, the Heather M. Reisman Chair in Perinatal Nursing Research, a position she held for 15 years. Her research program focused on rigorous evaluations of forms of care for childbearing women. It also examined how the physical setting for labour affects the behaviour of women and their care providers, as well as birth outcomes.  She has over 100 peer-reviewed publications, numerous book chapters and invited publications, and over 150 invited addresses and peer-reviewed presentations.
Dr. Hodnett served as an Editor for the Pregnancy and Childbirth Group of the Cochrane Collaboration from its inception until 2011. She was the lead author on two of its most highly-cited systematic reviews, “Continuous Support for Women During Childbirth” and “Alternative versus Conventional Institutional Settings for Birth”.

She served as a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group of the World Health Organization Maternal and Reproductive Health Research Program from 2005-2011. She was the first non-physician to chair the Randomized Controlled Trials peer review committee of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She is an Inaugural Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and was a member of its Advisory Board (2009-12).

Review Process for the presentations at the 3rd International Conference

Researchers, students and professional practitioners have been called to hand in abstracts for presentations or posters for the 3rd International conference until the end of August 2015. The call-for-abstracts has been extended twice. Finally, the abstracts could be send until the 31st of October 2015.

The submission was organized through two electronic forms to ensure that all relevant information was given and also that a double-blinded review process could be ensured. Personal data and the CVs of the authors and co-authors had to be submitted together with information on the following points:

1. Has the research received approval by an Ethics committee (If not, what was the reason)?
2. How has the research been funded (self-funding or external funding)?  If by external funding, which?
3. Has there been a potential personal, economic or thematic conflict of interest? If so, which?
4. Have all authors agreed with the publication?

Also, all authors included state that

5. ... there isn't a conflict of interest with their work and the “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals”
6. ... the abstract submitted has not been published elsewhere from today on until the 3rd International Conference

An abstracts with a maximum amount of 3500 characters (± 10%) including spaces could be submitted as an anonymous document in English or in German and English. A maximum amount of 5 key words and 5 references could be submitted as well. The framework of the abstracts should include: background, aim/research question, method, findings, relevance, suggestions/conclusion, ethical criteria, funding/sponsorship. The reviewers received additional mandatory information about the context in whcih the research has been carried out and how it has been funded. The possibilities to answer have been: Research/Project through external funding, PhD dissertation, Bachelor Thesis, self-funded study, Master thesis, other.

The review criteria could be accessed by all applicants as they have been displayed transparently on the homepage of the DGHWi. The organisational team of the conference received the anonymized abstracts and referred each of them to two reviewers. An anonymized list with the titles of the abstracts and the sums of the points as per review criteria have been examined by the board members of the DGHWI (none of the board members have been part of the organisational team) who approved the abstracts as presentation or poster.
In order to score the abstracts, the reviewers received the anonymized abstracts together with the information about the context in which the research has been carried out and if the abstract was intended in form of a presentation of poster.

The reviewers have been encouraged to explain what the abstract described and if they would recommend the submission as presentation or poster for the conference. The following five criteria to review the abstracts have been scored (1 = lowest score, 6 = best score)

1. Is the rational of the research/projet clear?
2. Is the method sections described sufficiently?
3. Are the main findings desrcibed in the abstract/are the main findings pointed out respectively?
4. Will the presentation contribute with new findings to the existing body of knowledge?
5. Did the authors mention relevance for professional practice?

We are grateful to all reviewers for their work to review the abstracts for the 3rd International Conference “Midwifery research – women in the focus”.

Prof. Dr. Nicola H. Bauer
Prof. em. Dr. Johann Behrens
Lea Beckmann, M.Sc.
Prof. Dr. Annette Bernloehr
Dr. Inès Brock
Dr. Angelica Ensel
Prof. Dr. Melita Grieshop
Susanne Grylka-Bäschlin, M.Sc.
Prof. Dr. Claudia Hellmers
Dipl.-Berufspäd. (FH) Monika Kraienhemke
Prof. Dr. Ute Lange
Dr. Christine Loytved
Dipl.-Berufspäd. (FH) Martina Schlüter-Cruse
Dipl.-Med.Päd. Susanne Simon
Prof. Dr. Dorothea Tegethoff
 

Übersetzung: Michaela Michel-Schuldt, M.Sc., PhD student University of Technology Sydney, Deutschland/Australien