scholarly journals Companionship for women/birthing people using antenatal and intrapartum care in England during COVID-19: a mixed-methods analysis of national and organisational responses and perspectives

BMJ Open ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. e051965
Author(s):  
Gill Thomson ◽  
Marie-Claire Balaam ◽  
Rebecca Nowland (Harris) ◽  
Nicola Crossland ◽  
Gill Moncrieff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Infection Control ◽  
Maternity Care ◽  
Service User ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
Intrapartum Care ◽  
Risks And Benefits ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Variable Information

ObjectivesTo explore stakeholders’ and national organisational perspectives on companionship for women/birthing people using antenatal and intrapartum care in England during COVID-19, as part of the Achieving Safe and Personalised maternity care In Response to Epidemics (ASPIRE) COVID-19 UK study.SettingMaternity care provision in England.ParticipantsInterviews were held with 26 national governmental, professional and service-user organisation leads (July–December 2020). Other data included public-facing outputs logged from 25 maternity Trusts (September/October 2020) and data extracted from 78 documents from eight key governmental, professional and service-user organisations that informed national maternity care guidance and policy (February–December 2020).ResultsSix themes emerged: ‘Postcode lottery of care’ highlights variations in companionship and visiting practices between trusts/locations, ‘Confusion and stress around ‘rules’’ relates to a lack of and variable information concerning companionship/visiting, ‘Unintended consequences’ concerns the negative impacts of restricted companionship or visiting on women/birthing people and staff, ‘Need for flexibility’ highlights concerns about applying companionship and visiting policies irrespective of need, ‘‘Acceptable’ time for support’ highlights variations in when and if companionship was ‘allowed’ antenatally and intrapartum and ‘Loss of human rights for gain in infection control’ emphasises how a predominant focus on infection control was at a cost to psychological safety and human rights.ConclusionsPolicies concerning companionship and visiting have been inconsistently applied within English maternity services during the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, policies were not justified by the level of risk, and were applied indiscriminately regardless of need. There is an urgent need to determine how to sensitively and flexibly balance risks and benefits and optimise outcomes during the current and future crisis situations.

scholarly journals Companionship for women using English maternity services during COVID-19: National and organisational perspectives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Thomson ◽  
Marie Clare Balaam ◽  
Rebecca Nowland ◽  
Nicola Crossland ◽  
Gill Moncrieff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Infection Control ◽  
Maternity Care ◽  
Service User ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Care Provision ◽  
Maternity Services ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Study Setting

Objectives: To explore the impact of COVID-19 on companionship for women using maternity services in England, as part of the Achieving Safe and Personalised maternity care In Response to Epidemics (ASPIRE COVID-19 UK) study. Setting: Maternity care provision in England. Participants: Interviews were held with 26 national governmental, professional, and service-user organisation leads including representatives from the Royal College of Midwives, NHS England, Birthrights and AIMS (July-Dec). Other data included public-facing outputs logged from 25 maternity Trusts (Sept/Oct) and data extracted from 78 documents from 8 key governmental, professional and service-user organisations that informed national maternity care guidance and policy (Feb-Dec). Results: Six themes emerged: Postcode lottery of care highlights variations in companionship practices, Confusion and stress around rules relates to a lack of and variable information concerning companionship, Unintended consequences concerns the negative impacts of restricted companionship on service-users and staff, Need for flexibility highlights concerns about applying companionship policies irrespective of need, Acceptable time for support highlights variations in when and if companionship was allowed antenatally and intrapartum; and Loss of human rights for gain in infection control emphasizes how a predominant focus on infection control was at a cost to psychological safety and womens human rights. Conclusions: Policies concerning companionship have been inconsistently applied within English maternity services during the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, policies were not justified by the level of risk, and were applied indiscriminately regardless of need. This was associated with psychological harms for some women and staff. There is an urgent need to determine how to balance risks and benefits sensitively and flexibly and to optimise outcomes during the current and future crisis situations.

scholarly journals Global changes in maternity care provision during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta-analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 100947
Author(s):  
Rosemary Townsend ◽  
Barbara Chmielewska ◽  
Imogen Barratt ◽  
Erkan Kalafat ◽  
Jan van der Meulen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Maternity Care ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Care Provision

The radical ideation of peasants, the ‘pseudo-radicalism’ of international human rights law, and the revolutionary lawyer

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-456
Author(s):  
Margot E Salomon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Human ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
United Nations Declaration

Abstract This article questions the use of international human rights law in realising social transformation. It studies the new United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, drawing on the commodity-form theory of law. Through this lens, foregrounding the relationship between capitalism and law and their shared constituent form, the contradiction in what is at times a radical normative project in international human rights law is revealed. With the unintended consequences of human rights lawyering made visible, this work turns to the means through which the advocate can launch a potentially transformative ‘legal’ strategy. An exploration of two seminal modes of reconciliation follows: reconciling the use of international human rights law with a commitment to social transformation and reconciling the post-capitalist politics of progressive lawyers with their use of the law.

scholarly journals Healthy Birth Practice #4: Avoid Interventions Unless They Are Medically Necessary

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-103
Author(s):  
Judith A. Lothian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Epidural Analgesia ◽  
Maternity Care ◽  
Fetal Monitoring ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Intravenous Fluids ◽  
Electronic Fetal Monitoring ◽  
Increase Risk ◽  
Continuous Electronic Fetal Monitoring

Maternity care in the United States continues to be intervention intensive. The routine use of intravenous fluids, restrictions on eating and drinking, continuous electronic fetal monitoring, epidural analgesia, and augmentation of labor characterize most U.S. births. The use of episiotomy has decreased but is still higher than it should be. These interventions disturb the normal physiology of labor and birth and restrict women's ability to cope with labor. The result is a cascade of interventions that increase risk, including the risk of cesarean surgery, for women and babies. This paper describes the use and effect of routine interventions on the physiologic process of labor and birth and identifies the unintended consequences resulting from the routine use of these interventions in labor and birth.

scholarly journals State Capture through Corruption: Can Human Rights Help?

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 331-335
Author(s):  
Jimena Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Regional Systems ◽  
State Capture ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Negative Impacts

Until recently, the United Nations and regional systems of human rights protection had shown considerable reluctance to address human rights violations resulting from corruption. Instead, these actors would underline the negative impacts of corruption on human rights without identifying corruption itself as a violation of human rights. Since 2017, however, this has begun to shift. The UN, regional human rights institutions, and civil society have begun to devise concrete ways for human rights institutions and instruments to better contribute to the fight against corruption. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (“the Court”), in particular, has taken preliminary steps to establish a legal link between corruption and human rights violations.

scholarly journals U.S. Multinationals and Human Rights: A Theoretical and Empirical Assessment of Extractive Versus Nonextractive Sectors

2020 ◽  
pp. 000765032092897
Author(s):  
Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati ◽  
Nicole Janz ◽  
Indra de Soysa
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Status Quo Bias ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Human Rights Abuse ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Impact

The consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) for human rights protection are poorly understood. We propose that the impact of FDI varies across industries. In particular, extractive firms in the oil and mining industries go where the resources are located and are bound to such investment, which creates a status quo bias among them when it comes to supporting repressive rulers (“ location-bound effect”). The same is not true for nonextractive multinational corporations (MNCs) in manufacturing or services, which can, in comparison, exit problematic countries more easily. We also propose that strong democratic institutions can alleviate negative impacts of extractive FDI on human rights (“ democratic safeguard effect”). Using U.S. FDI broken up into extractive and nonextractive industries in 157 host countries (1999–2015), we find support for these propositions.1 Extractive FDI is associated with more human rights abuse, but nonextractive FDI is associated with less abuse, after controlling for other factors, including concerns about endogeneity. We find also that the negative human rights impact of extractive FDI vanishes in countries where democratic institutions are stronger. Our results are robust to a range of alternative estimation techniques.

Transforming intrapartum care: Respectful maternity care

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 113-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan A. Bohren ◽  
Özge Tunçalp ◽  
Suellen Miller
Keyword(s):  
Maternity Care ◽  
Respectful Maternity Care ◽  
Intrapartum Care

Understanding Children’s Rights: A Vision beyond Vulnerability

2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Tobin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Children's Rights ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Children’S Rights ◽  
Right To Participation ◽  
Special Rights

The idea of children’s vulnerability played a critical role in motivating the adoption of the un Convention on the Rights of a Child, but should vulnerability provide the basis for special human rights for children? Are children especially vulnerable relative to adults? This article seeks to explore the idea of children’s vulnerability in understanding the concept of children’s rights. It argues that vulnerability is not a condition peculiar to children. At the same time it recognizes that children experience special vulnerabilities relative to adults. It is these vulnerabilities that provide a justification for the special rights accorded to them under the Convention. The characterisation of children as vulnerable carries the risk that they will be defined by their vulnerabilities. To address the unintended consequences of a vulnerability paradigm, there is a need to expand the conception of children in a way that recognises their evolving capacities and right to participation.

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