The complications of pregnancy and childbirth have been targeted in the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority's 2009 December Supplementary Patient Safety Advisory. The special issue provides gynecologists, obstetricians, midwives and the entire obstetric team, with strategies to help them prevent the complications based upon real Pennsylvania data.
"Due to the volume of data we have from facilities submitting reports, the Authority is able to target specific physician groups based upon their field of practice," Mike Doering, executive director of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority said. "This issue concentrates on the complications obstetricians, midwives and the entire obstetric team have encountered during labor and delivery within Pennsylvania facilities for the last five years."
The Advisory contains four articles with in-depth discussion on medication errors in labor and delivery, preventing harm to mothers and babies during vacuum-assisted vaginal deliveries, discussion regarding neonatal complications with shoulder dystocia and an overall snapshot of complications that resulted in 256 reports in which the mother was harmed (including 20 deaths) during pregnancy and childbirth.
The titles and descriptions of the articles are as follows: