June 2003

An International Collaboration: Water immersion during labour/birth developed by Research Midwife Lecturer Ethel Burns School of Health and Social Care, Oxford Brookes University Jack Straws Lane Oxford, OX3 0FL UK © 2003

• For the first time, an opportunity for midwives and doctors world wide to collect consistent data, and contribute to the evidence base about water immersion during labour and birth

• This tool will be equally useful to midwives and doctors caring for women in hospital, in a birth centre or at home.

Dear Colleague,

Waterbirth remains controversial in many centres throughout the world. We believe that it is vital to collect data on the outcomes for mothers who use a pool during labour, and their babies. In order to standardise this data collection we have put together a simple data tool that we offer to you free of charge. (We produced the database on Microsoft Excel, which is widely available and easy to use).

This collaboration has been initiated following discussion with midwives and doctors experienced in waterbirth, in the UK, Europe, Australia, Brazil and Russia. The aim is to facilitate ease of data collection and provide a mechanism for analysis. We would like you to send your data to a central point for collective analysis. In this way a greater amount of comprehensive information can be generated and disseminated in less time, to inform practice and generate further research questions.

If you would like to find out more about this, and would like to contribute to the initiative, please contact Ethel Burns at School of Health and Social Care, Oxford Brookes University, Jack Straws Lane, Oxford, OX3 0FL, U.K. (tel +44 (0) 1865 485296 or e-mail )

Access information on how to participate in the collaboration

E-mail eburns@brookes.ac.uk

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