Safety and Quality in Maternal and Neonatal Care

Dear Colleagues,

Each year, around 300,000 women die during and following pregnancy and childbirth worldwide. The principal three direct causes of maternal death and severe morbidity are blood loss, infection, and hypertension. Most maternal deaths or severe morbidity are preventable with timely management by a well-trained health professional working in a secure environment. Around 5 million babies are stillborn or die in their first month of life, and the three main causes of these deaths are prematurity, intrapartum-related complications, and sepsis.

In spite of the medical progress made since the 19th century, the improvement of the quality of maternal and neonatal care remains a global priority, including in Western countries. Indeed, on a daily basis, numerous serious adverse events related to perinatal and neonatal healthcare occur during investigations, treatments, and medical or surgical acts; the consequences of these events include death, the occurrence of a permanent functional impairment, prolonged hospitalizations, psychological consequences and patient dissatisfaction, as well as an increase in the cost of care. Moreover, substandard care, which can result from a lack of familiarity with evidence-based medicine and the delayed recognition of the severity of clinical context, can increase the risk of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.

According to the WHO, maternal health refers to the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postnatal period. Each of these periods should be a positive experience, ensuring that women and their babies maintain their optimal health and reach their maximal potential in terms of their well-being. The global improvement of physical and psychological maternal and neonatal health must remain a major goal in the development of medical policies and for perinatal care providers. To achieve this, safer healthcare should be developed, based on mapping the risks and benefits of any type of care, from the beginning to the end of a patient’s pathway through the healthcare system.

Severe maternal and neonatal morbidities should be considered as quality markers, or more precisely, indicators of missed opportunities for the prevention and/or management of a complication during pregnancy, childbirth, and neonatal care, and thus, they are important keys to the prevention of severe maternal or neonatal morbidity.

The time has come for major changes in the quality of pregnancy, birth, and early childhood worldwide. As an international journal with global impact, Healthcare will release a Special Issue to support healthcare providers’ involvement in the Safety and Quality of Maternal and Neonatal Care.

Accordingly, this Special Issue seeks research studies regarding topics including, but not limited to:

• Perinatal safety risk assessment;
• Practice variation;
• Perinatal and neonatal quality improvement;
• Quality healthcare;
• Safer healthcare;
• Health education during pregnancy and early childhood;
• Others.

Dr. Françoise Vendittelli
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Healthcare quality
• Medical practice assessment
• Neonatology
• Obstetrics
• Patient safety
• Perinatology
• Perinatal and neonatal technology assessment
• Quality assurance
• Risk control
• Health Education