The MANA Division of Research (DOR) is coming to MANA CAM 2017 with ground-breaking offerings. Don’t miss out on your chance to connect with DOR members and advance research in midwifery care!

New! DOR “Office Hours” at the Conference!

The DOR will be holding drop-in “office hours” at a designated location throughout all three days of the conference. Members of the DOR Coordinating Council will be hanging out at their booth, ready to answer your questions and receive your ideas. Come by to get enrolled in MANA Stats! Have your burning research questions answered! Give ideas for research studies to DOR members! Engage in friendly conversation about research and midwives Or just say hi! We might even have a few surprises. So don’t delay, be sure to stop by!

The full schedule of office hours will be released as the conference dates approach. We look forward to connecting with our MANA Stats contributors and all the midwives that support research activities.

Are you ready for MANA CAM 2017? The DOR is! We can’t wait to see you there!

Mark the “DOR track” on your calendars now!

Midwifery Research and the DOR will be represented in sessions throughout the conference. Take a look at the following highlights:

Friday, 11/3

Integrating Research into Midwifery Communities: Evidence-informed Practice in Action
Dr. Courtney L. Everson, Director of Research Education
3:00pm – 4:30pm
Applying an evidence-informed practice (EIP) framework is critical for optimizing care outcomes and integrating research into midwifery care. An EIP framework rests in the triad intersection between the best available research, the midwife’s professional expertise, and the client’s individual values and needs. The purpose of this session is to equip midwives with strategies for integrating research into their midwifery communities,  moving EIP into action on professional realms, including peer review, interprofessional collaboration and grand rounds, regulatory rule making and community health equity. Upon completion of this session, participants will be equipped with a foundational toolkit of practical strategies for incorporating research into their local midwifery communities and in midwifery leadership work, maximising efficiency and efficacy in consistently using scientific evidence to inform midwifery excellence.

DOR Research Roundup & Roundtable (plenary)
Bruce Ackerman, Director of Data Collection; Dr. Courtney Everson, Director of Research Education; Jen Brown, Project Manager; Dr. Marit Bovbjerg, Director of Data Quality; Dr. Melissa Cheyney, Chair; Saraswathi Vedam, Senior Advisor
5:00pm – 6:00pm
This year’s DOR plenary session will combine the most successful elements from previous conferences. Beginning with the “research round-up” we present a brief synopsis (including preliminary results, when available) of all current projects using MANA Stats data. At this time, these include: 4.0 waterbirth, waterbirth for VBAC women, home vs. birth center outcomes, gestational weight gain in women planning community birth, urban vs. rural home birth practice styles and outcomes, and others. Each member of the DOR Coordinating Council will then introduce themselves, and, as a panel, we will take questions from the audience. We anticipate a highly-interactive session that not only gives the attendees a sneak peek at as-yet-unpublished research findings, but also enhances a broader understanding about the people behind the MANA Stats project.

Saturday, 11/4

The Giving Voice to Mothers Study: Communities of Color Speak of Disrespect and Inequity in Access to Birth Options
Saraswathi Vedam, Senior Advisor
8:00am – 9:00am
Come learn about the Giving Voice to Mothers Study and development of the Mothers Autonomy in Decision Making (MADM) and Mothers on Respect index (MORi) scales in the context of Patient Oriented Outcomes research in the US. This presentation will review the current landscape of patient oriented research in the US, previous studies of women’s experiences with maternity care (Listening to Mothers surveys), and how the Giving Voice to Mothers Study fills an important gap. Results explore women’s experiences of maternity care and treatment by care providers, based on race and socio-economic status. Findings focus on access to high quality, culturally congruent care, preferences for care, and outcomes, as well as experiences of respectful care and autonomy across target populations. Results will be discussed in the context of global initiatives to address respectful maternity care, and ideas for increasing equitable access to birth place choice and respectful care and autonomy in decision making for all women in the US.

Sunday, 11/5

The MANA Stats Fetal, Neonatal Mortality Review (FNMR) Project: Preliminary Findings and Implications for Practice
Dr. Melissa Cheyney, Chair, on behalf of the MANA Division of Research
8:00am – 9:00am
In this presentation Dr. Cheyney will describe findings from a study designed to examine all fetal and neonatal deaths recorded in MANA Stats between 2004 and 2015. Using a modified Fetal-Infant-Mortality-Review (FIMR) approach, midwife-researchers conducted detailed interviews with midwives for all non-miscarriage fetal and neonatal deaths in the sample. The objective was to clarify the gestational age at which the death occurred and to properly classify late miscarriages. The reviewers also collected qualitative on when, how, and why the death occurred,  whether an autopsy was conducted, and the official cause of death. In a large sample of more than 50,000 planned, midwife-led, home births in the United States we will provide an in-depth thematic analysis of the primary contributors to mortality in the sample.

Best Practices in Charting: Lessons Learned from the 4.0 MANA Stats Validation Project
Dr. Courtney Everson, Director of Research Education, and Gina Gerboth
11:00am – 12:30pm
Accurate charting is a critical midwifery skill. Charts are legal records, provide a narrative of each client encounter, and are critical to interprofessional collaboration during times of consult, referral, and transfer. Charts add clarity when there is a question regarding the events of care, especially during litigation or regulatory investigation. Finally, charts can assist researchers in obtaining valid data as part of perinatal data registries.The purpose of this session is to provide recommendations, skills, and tools that will help midwives to improve charting efficiency, clarity, and consistency, both paper charts and electronic health records, and will identify the “why, what, and how, when, and who” of charting and writing clear, useful notes.  Resulting improvements in charting will support future validation studies of the MANA Stats perinatal data registry, protect midwives and clients during courses of care, and help advance midwifery professionalism.

Mapping Integration of Midwives and Access to Physiological Birth across 50 States
Saraswathi Vedam, Senior Advisor
11:00am – 12:30pm
Midwife-led care has been associated with decreased use of obstetric interventions, cost- effectiveness, and optimal outcomes across all settings. Lack of coordination of care across birth settings (home-hospital, rural-urban) has been associated with adverse maternal-fetal outcomes. The Access and Integration Maternity Mapping (AIMM) Study examines the effects of place of birth on maternal/newborn outcomes, and how integration of midwives into health care systems affects access to physiologic birth care. We will report results through 4 interactive data maps, displaying  level of integration of midwifery care, optimal and adverse outcomes, and access to care, by state, and race of mother. We will discuss implications of findings for communities of colors, and how these findings can inform health policy, and midwifery expansion in the US.

Zika and Midwifery Care in Puerto Rico: Local Perceptions and Clinical Assessment
Holly Horan, Dr. Melissa Cheyney (Chair), Vanessa Caldari, Vicki Hedley
11:00am – 12:30pm

El Zika is a mosquito-borne virus associated with debilitating neurological conditions (including microcephaly) in infants whose mothers contract the disease during pregnancy. As Zika has spread across Latin America and the Caribbean, it has become imperative that midwives be prepared to discuss Zika with clients who may be effected through travel, recent immigration to the US, or residency in some southern states. This panel will provide critical new information on assessment and treatment of Zika in pregnant women and infants, with a holistic focus on researchers’, providers’ and pregnant people’s perspectives.