Background: The five elements of the Safer Baby Bundle (SBB) are being rolled out across Queensland (QLD) maternity services. To evaluate the views and experiences of clinicians as well as women’s experience with antenatal care around stillbirth prevention (and the SBB initiative) it is important to understand attitudes, practices, and experiences prior to SBB implementation.
Methods: From January to July 2020, women receiving antenatal care and clinicians at participating hospitals in QLD completed on-line surveys. The aim was to identify antenatal care issues that affect QLD women in relation to the five SBB elements. This included understanding women’s knowledge and awareness of stillbirth prevention and their experiences of care received; and for clinicians their knowledge and confidence, satisfaction with resources and training needs.
Results: 356 women and 573 clinicians (80% midwives) from 32 services completed the surveys. Most clinicians felt adequately trained across the SBB elements (range, 71-97%), but many (range, 40-57%) wanted additional training. Clinicians felt most confident in their level of knowledge for having conversations with women around fetal movement (92%) and least confident for discussing risks and benefits around timing of birth (52%). Whilst most women felt satisfied with information received across the SBB elements (range, 51-90%), they were more likely to feel unsatisfied with information provided around timing of birth (10%) and how their baby was growing (8%).
Conclusions: Opportunities for improving knowledge, confidence and practice were identified for QLD clinicians across all five SBB elements. Queensland women identified improvement in provision of information and advice around stillbirth prevention, maternal safe-sleep position and timing of birth as important.