Abstract
The way midwives implement maternity care guidelines in the postpartum period remains substandard despite the availability of ethical legal frameworks by the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Department of Health (NDoH) and the South African Nursing Council (SANC) that guide and regulate midwifery practice. Therefore, to prevent maternal morbidity and mortality from preventable causes, midwives need to have knowledge of the guidelines and be able to implement them.
Implementation of postpartum care guidelines would assist South Africa (SA) realise its sustainable developmental goal (SDG) of reducing maternal mortality rate (MMR) to 70 per 100.000 births by 2030, also improve quality of postpartum care thus reducing litigations from negligence. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the implementation of postpartum care guidelines by midwives at a selected regional hospital in Gauteng.
A qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was used. The qualitative research design and methods enabled the researcher to describe the implementation of postpartum care guidelines by midwives at a selected regional hospital in Gauteng. Purposive sampling was used to select patient records needed to answer the research question and objectives.
Data collection involved reading and exploring the actual content of the patients records for occurrence of words, concepts or phrases that describe implementation of postpartum care guidelines by midwives at a selected regional hospital in Gauteng. Content analysis method of data analysis was used, and the principles of justice, consent, beneficence non-maleficence, privacy, anonymity, confidentiality, respect, interpretation, ownership, and authorship of research material were respected. Ethical permission and permission in the setting was obtained from the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of the selected regional hospital. Trustworthiness was adhered to, credibility, transferability/ portability, dependability/precision, confirmability /impartiality, and authenticity were ensured. From the results of the study, two main themes were identified.
The study displayed two main themes: those aspects of care implemented according to the postpartum care guidelines and aspects of care not implemented according to the postpartum
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care guidelines. The results of the study presented a gap in the implementation of the postpartum care guidelines, and a need for midwives to be trained in postpartum care guidelines, the management of obstetric emergencies and legal implications hereof. Furthermore, it will help the midwives at a selected regional hospital if the institution develop policies, standard operating procedures and make resources available to assist the midwives in the implementation of postpartum care guidelines. Keywords: Document analysis, implementation, midwife, and postpartum care guidelines