Ectopic pregnancy – the midwife’s role in the community

Ectopic pregnancy (EP) is estimated to occur in one out of 80 women.1 Midwives and nurses are often the first port of call for a woman and therefore the importance of understanding the signs of symptoms of EP to ensure prompt referral and accurate advice is essential.2,3 This article will discuss signs and symptoms and discuss best practice guidance (CG154) from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE).4Peer reviewe

Escorting pregnant prisoners —the experiences of women and staff:‘Quite a lot of us like doing it, because you get to see a baby, or you get to see a birth’

It is understood that pregnant women make up around 6% of the female prison population although precise numbers are not collated. There are limited qualitative studies published that document the experiences of pregnancy whilst serving a prison sentence. The gap in the evidence necessitated qualitative, ethnographic research of the pregnancy experience. The study took place during 2015-2016 and involved non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 28 female prisoners in three English prisons who were pregnant or had recently given birth. Ten members of prison and health care staff were also interviewed. One key theme which evolved from interviews with staff were their experiences of being on ‘bed watch’ with pregnant or labouring women. Additionally, a new typology of prison officer has emerged from this study: the ‘maternal’; a member of prison staff who accompanies pregnant, labouring women to hospital where the role of ‘bed watch officer’ can become that of a birth supporter. The officer (s) attending pregnant women in hospital have an important role to play and may have been ‘chosen’ by the woman. This paper provides narratives of these experiences and discusses the relationship of the bed watch officer who may be both guarding and supporting the woman. Pseudonyms are used throughout.Peer reviewe

Statistics for Equal Opportunities in Higher Education: Final Report to HEFCE, SHEFC, HEFCW

This report gives the findings and conclusions of a project looking at the availability and use of statistics on discrimination and equality of employment opportunity in the higher education sector, considering both academic and non-academic staff. This represents a small part of a wider programme funded by the three Higher Education Funding Councils exploring how best to monitor the higher education sector in order to avoid discrimination and facilitate the dissemination of good practice

Thinning out redundant empirical data

Given a set $X$ of "empirical" points, whose coordinates are perturbed by errors, we analyze whether it contains redundant information, that is whether some of its elements could be represented by a single equivalent point. If this is the case, the empirical information associated to $X$ could be described by fewer points, chosen in a suitable way. We present two different methods to reduce the cardinality of $X$ which compute a new set of points equivalent to the original one, that is representing the same empirical information. Though our algorithms use some basic notions of Cluster Analysis they are specifically designed for "thinning out" redundant data. We include some experimental results which illustrate the practical effectiveness of our methods.Comment: 14 pages; 3 figure

Stable Border Bases for Ideals of Points

Let $X$ be a set of points whose coordinates are known with limited accuracy; our aim is to give a characterization of the vanishing ideal $I(X)$ independent of the data uncertainty. We present a method to compute a polynomial basis $B$ of $I(X)$ which exhibits structural stability, that is, if $\widetilde X$ is any set of points differing only slightly from $X$, there exists a polynomial set $\widetilde B$ structurally similar to $B$, which is a basis of the perturbed ideal $I(\widetilde X)$.Comment: This is an update version of "Notes on stable Border Bases" and it is submitted to JSC. 16 pages, 0 figure

Becoming a mother in prison

There are around 600 pregnant women incarcerated in one of the 12 prisons in England and Wales each year and approximately 100-150 babies are born while their mothers are in prison. It is understood that a significant proportion of these women have complex physical, social and psychological needs. I have carried out qualitative research studying the experience of being pregnant in prison. This article will consider the narrative of one of my research participants, Becky, and is dedicated to her.Peer reviewe

Birth Supporters experiences of attending prisoners being compulsorily separated from their new-born babies

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/There is growing evidence demonstrating increased mental ill-health in women compulsorily separated from their babies. For imprisoned women, the risk of self-harm and suicide may be further exacerbated. Birth supporters caring voluntarily for women in prison having their babies removed is valued and beneficial for wellbeing. Little is known about the effects on those supporting women in these circumstances. The aim of this study was to better understand the experiences of birth supporters when caring for imprisoned women experiencing compulsory separation from their babies. A qualitative approach explored the experiences of 12 birth supporters through: one to one in-depth online interviews. A thematic analytical method was utilised to analyse the data. Four key themes resulted from thematic analysis: vicarious trauma, transference of pain, standout cases and support networks. Birth supporters witnessing traumatic events such as the separation of imprisoned mother from her new-born baby may need additional supervision and therapeutic support. Birth supporters may experience Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) and appropriate support and debriefing should be afforded to them equal to paid health and social care staff. The main argument of this paper is that strong support networks can serve as a benchmark for helping individuals affected by vicarious trauma, particularly in complex situations involving women who are being compulsorily separated from their babies. Due to the value clearly placed upon those who do volunteer by women, this kind of support should be consistent across criminal justice settings especially considering the impact on women’s mental health and wellbeing.Peer reviewe

The Relationship Between Qualitative and Quantitative Pain Descriptors of Prolonged Standing Induced Low Back Pain

The purpose of this study was to determine if assessing pain symptoms could help to better define prolonged standing induced low back pain (LBP) development. Thirty-five participants (18 male & 17 female), with no prior history of LBP, preformed two-hours of standing while doing occupational tasks in random 15-minute bouts. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and The Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire were used to assess the participant’s current level of LBP in 7.5-minute increments for 120 minutes of standing. Participants were instrumented for motion capture and stood on two force plates to track lumbar spine movement and body weight shifts, respectively. Participants were either classified as pain developers (PDs) or non-pain developers (non-PDs) based on two methods, VAS and symptoms. A two-way chi-square test was used to compare pain categorization. A three-way ANOVA (time, gender, pain group) was run with lumbar spine fidgets and large body weight shifts. Pain developers on average reported pain development with the symptom method 31.3 (± 24.8) minutes before the VAS method. Eight participants (44%) changed from non-PDs with the VAS method to PDs with the symptom method (p=0.0047). Fifty-six percent of non-PDs, classified using the VAS, reported LBP symptoms during prolonged standing. Separating groups by symptom reporting did not determine differences in lumbar spine movements and body weight shifts. Clinicians, workers, and future researchers can use symptoms to help categorize pain in order to help reduce LBP due to prolonged standing