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Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to understand the current challenges in pedagogies in maternal newborn courses in undergraduate nursing programs in the United States.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will able to understand the need for collaboration between institutions and nurse educators in developing learning experiences to prepare nursing students for practice.
Authors: Ana C. Sanchez Birkhead, RN, WHNP-BC, PhD, Lynn Clark Callister, RN, PhD, FAAN, Nicole Fletcher, RN, Allie Holt, RN
Purpose: For low-risk childbearing women, fewer technological interventions are associated with better physical and psychosocial outcomes, yet un-medicated physiologic births are not as common as they were previously. As a result, fewer undergraduate nursing students experience caring for women who choose physiologic birth—presenting a challenge for nurse educators with implications for preparation of students to provide appropriate care for childbearing women when they graduate.
Methods: This exploratory, descriptive qualitative study was conducted among 150 randomly-selected undergraduate nursing programs in the United States to explore the challenges of educating nursing students about low intervention birth.
Findings: Four themes described current challenges: lack of placement opportunities, education versus clinical practice, evidence-based support of physiologic birth and the need for more research on pedagogy that effectively educates future nurses for low-intervention births within highly technical units.
Conclusion: Most of the maternal/newborn nursing faculty who responded to our survey stated they provided students with varying amounts of information on caring for women requesting physiologic births. Most were aware of the latest evidence-based research on providing supportive care for childbearing women however, not all professors taught these care practices in their curriculum. Working collaboratively across institutions, educators can develop common pedagogies to ensure that future nurses will be prepared to care for women requesting all types of birth options. Graduates will then emerge equipped with the latest evidence-based information, skills, and competencies to care for women and newborns by supporting the normalcy of birth.
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