Establishing Guideline Development Group for WHO Recommendations on Intrapartum Care for a Positive Childbirth Experience
25 April 2017 – Intrapartum care is an essential component of effective maternity services. Good quality intrapartum care is vital to reduce unexpected adverse outcomes of labour and childbirth, and to optimize the wellbeing for women and their newborns. The majority of pregnant women and their fetuses are healthy at the onset of labour. Despite this, rates of labour and childbirth interventions are rising around the world, with evidence of unintended adverse consequences, and increased costs to health care budgets. At the same time, all women do not have access to the essential services they need to keep them and their newborns safe and healthy. Recent studies indicate that some women do not access intrapartum services even when they are available, for a range of socio-demographic reasons, including the attitudes and behaviors of staff.
WHO is currently developing evidence-based recommendations for intrapartum care of healthy pregnant women and their babies. Following the integration of qualitative evidence into the 2016 WHO antenatal care recommendations, it was considered important that the upcoming intrapartum care recommendations also include a qualitative workstream. This will be focused on what matters to women in terms of intrapartum care, what might promote and inhibit effective intrapartum care uptake and delivery, the acceptability and feasibility of specific labour and childbirth interventions, how the outcomes of labour care are valued by stakeholders, and, where possible, how issues of equity are perceived in relation to the interventions, practices and procedures that will be addressed in the guideline. During a scoping meeting on 12-14 April 2016, a group of external experts agreed that this guideline should include a total of 20 priority questions spanning across definitions of normal labour, care during labour admission, care during first and second stages of labour, and supportive care throughout labour.
List of experts with biographies
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See list of experts
pdf, 132kb
NOTE: The GDG members are participating in the meeting on their individual capacity. Affiliations are presented only as a reference. The participation of experts in a WHO meeting does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the WHO nor does it create a binding relationship between the experts and WHO. The biographies have been provided by the experts themselves and are the sole responsibility of the individuals concerned. WHO is not responsible for the accuracy, veracity and completeness of the information provided. In accordance with WHO conflict of interest assessment policy, expert’s biographies are published for transparency purposes. Comments and perceptions are brought to the knowledge of WHO through the public notice and comment process. Comments sent to WHO are treated confidentially and their receipt will be acknowledged through a generic email notification to the sender. Please send any comments to the following email: mpa-info@who.int. WHO reserves the right to discuss information received through this process with the relevant expert with no attribution to the provider of such information. Upon review and assessment of the information received through this process, WHO, in its sole discretion, may take appropriate management of conflicts of interests in accordance with its policies.
Technical consultations are planned to bring together the members of the Guideline Development Group (GDG) and Technical Working Group (TWG) [systematic reviewers and guideline methodologists who prepared the evidence base] to develop the recommendations. The responsibility of the GDG is to assist the WHO in fine-tuning priority questions that will guide the retrieval and synthesis of available research evidence; examine and interpret the synthesized evidence; and formulate corresponding recommendations. These groups will electronically interact with the WHO guideline steering group and attend two face-to-face WHO technical consultations in Geneva, Switzerland from 9-11 May and 19-20 September 2017 to formulate and approve the recommendations.
In keeping with the requirements of the WHO Guidelines Review Committee and the WHO Compliance, Risk Management and Ethics Office, we are posting online for two weeks short biographies of the GDG and TWG members. The listed candidates for GDG and TWG membership have also submitted a Declaration of Interest form stating any conflict of interests. WHO has applied its internal processes to ensure that the performance of the above tasks by members of this group will be transparent and without any significant conflict of interests (academic, financial, or other) that could affect the credibility of WHO recommendations. Nevertheless, WHO invites the general public to review the experts and stakeholders involved and provide feedback regarding any member deemed to have a significant conflict of interest with respect to the terms of reference for this group. Comments and feedbacks should be cordial and constructive, and sent to mpa-info@who.int.