Accredited | Certified as being of a prescribed quality. |
Acute Maternity Services | Services providing care during labour and delivery. |
Amniocentesis | A test carried out during or after 15 weeks of pregnancy for fetal abnormality. The test involves the removal of a small amount of fluid from the amniotic sac by aspiration through the abdominal wall, for diagnostic purposes. |
Antenatal Care | Care of women during pregnancy by professionals in order to detect, predict, prevent and manage problems with women or their unborn babies. Care also includes education, advice and support. |
Audit | The measuring and evaluation of care against agreed standards with a view to improving practice and care delivery. |
Caesarean Section | An operation where the baby is delivered through an incision through the abdominal and uterine walls. |
Cardiotocograph | A test of fetal well-being and uterine contractions. A combination of electro-cardiography and tocography. The fetal heart rate is obtained by a microphone placed on the woman's abdomen or by an electrode attached to the fetal scalp during labour. At the same time contractions of the uterus are measured by a tocograph placed on the woman's abdomen. Both are recorded on a monitoring device. |
Community Maternity Unit | A maternity unit, midwife managed, occasionally with GP involvement, which may be a stand-alone unit or adjacent to a non-obstetric hospital or adjacent to a maternity unit. |
Competency | Required level of skill and proficiency. |
Congenital Abnormalities | An anomaly present at birth. |
Continuity of Care | This term is used to describe a situation where all the professionals involved in delivery of care share common ways of working and a common philosophy. The aim being to reduce conflicting advice experienced by women, and the same philosophy of care is experienced by the woman throughout the period of her care. |
Continuity of Carer | The same professional providing care throughout a woman's contact with the maternity services. It can also be used to describe the same caregiver throughout a specific episode of care, such as during labour and childbirth. |
Demography | The study of statistics on births, deaths and diseases. |
European Community | The Working Time Directive provides for minimum daily and weekly |
Working Time Directive | rest periods, annual paid holidays, a limit on the working week of 48 hours and restrictions on night work. It excludes from its scope transport, work at sea and doctors in training. |
Fetal | Of the fetus. |
Fetus | The unborn baby, usually referring to development from the seventh week of pregnancy until birth. |
Guidelines | Systematically developed statements which assist in decision-making about appropriate health care for specific clinical conditions. |
Home Birth | This is usually a planned event where the woman decides to give birth at home, with care provided by the midwife. It is normal for 2 midwives to be present for the birth. Occasionally the GP is involved in the care and present at the birth. |
Integrated Care Pathways | A coherent approach to providing health promotion, detection and treatment for a specific illness. |
Integrated Service | A multi-disciplinary, multi-professional approach to service provision. |
Intrapartum | The period during labour and delivery. |
In-utero | In the uterus/womb, unborn. |
Lead Professional | The professional who will give a substantial part of the care personally and who is responsible for ensuring that the woman has access to care from other professionals as appropriate. |
Local Health Care | These co-operatives are GP-led and were set up to address the |
Co-operatives (LHCC) | health needs of local communities through a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency forum. |
Maternity Services | A committee set up within a NHS Board area which provides a |
Liaison Committee | forum for all the professions involved in the provision of maternity care with representatives of the women who use the services to discuss issues relevant to the provision and development of maternity services in the area. |
Maternity Unit | A building or group of buildings in which maternity care is provided. It can be located within, or adjacent to, a general hospital, or away from the general hospital. |
Multi-disciplinary | An approach combining the knowledge, skills and expertise of a range of organisations and professionals. |
Multi-professional | Care delivered by a team of health professionals. |
Named Midwife | A named, qualified midwife who will be responsible for women's midwifery care. |
Neonatal Period | The first 28 days of a baby's life. |
Obstetric | The branch of medicine and surgery that deals with pregnancy and childbirth. |
Postnatal | After the birth. |
Postnatal Period | A period not less than 10 days or more than 28 days after the end of labour, during which time the attendance on the mother and baby by a midwife is mandatory. |
Premature Baby | Born before the due date (less than 37 weeks gestation). |
Primary Health Care | Primary Health Care is health care at the first point of contact with the Health Service, addressing physical, social and psychological problems, but also providing continuity of care. The traditional Primary Health Care Team of General Practitioners working with nursing, administrative and other support colleagues has largely been expanded to include colleagues from other agencies and disciplines relevant to the delivery of care appropriate to the person's needs. |
Principles | A code of direction. |
Professional | In this report, Professional usually refers to those who have been specially trained in health care such as the midwife, the GP, the obstetrician, the anaesthetist, the paediatrician/neonatologist and the health visitor. |
Protocol | An adaptation of a clinical guideline or a written statement to meet local conditions and constraints, which has legal connotations. |
Resuscitation | The revival of someone who is in cardiac or respiratory failure or shock. |
Screening | Mass examination of the population to detect specific illnesses. |
Shared Care | An agreed arrangement between a GP and an obstetrician, a GP and a midwife or an obstetrician and a midwife over care for a pregnant woman. |
Strategy | A plan or a policy to achieve something. |
Supervisor of Midwives | A statutory function whereby a midwife who has completed the appropriate training is appointed to the role of supervisor of midwives. The role encompasses the provision of support and guidance for midwives, protection of the public, contribution to the regulation of the practice of midwives and promotion of high quality care. Each midwife has a named supervisor of midwives. |
Telemedicine | Refers to any application of information and communications technology which removes or mitigates the effect of distance in health care - sometimes now referred to as "Telehealth". |
Ultrasound Scan | An image created by the use of sound waves above the audible range of the human ear. It is useful in the confirmation of pregnancy, the determination of fetal size and wellbeing. |
Woman Centred | The needs of the individual woman provide the focus for the planning, organising and delivery of maternity services. |