Background: Expectant mothers who require extra-special care due to illness or a problem in their unborn child are part of your everyday job as a midwife. An increase in this type of care can been seen emerging from high incidences of multiple births, older first-time mothers and complex conditions. At the same time we are experiencing a national and international shortage of trained midwives, which leads to registered nurses in clinics increasingly taking care of these ill pregnant women and their unborn children despite a lack of specific training.
Aim: To achieve a high level of expertise in registered nurses and midwives who take care of women with high-risk pregnancies and their unborn children.
Methods: We have developed a continuing education programme for registered nurses and midwives in an inter-institutional cooperation between the Antenatal Ward at University Hospital Basel and the Institute of Midwifery at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
Outcomes: Since 2013 the Institute of Midwifery has been offering a five-day training continuing education course with the following contents:
- physiology/pathology of pregnancy
- cardiotograms (CTG)
- multiple pregnancies
- diversity
- domestic violence
Conclusion: The continuing education programme is aimed at registered nurses and midwives who work in departments for prenatal care and wish to expand their knowledge
