Guidelines

Asthma management in pregnancy

Key points

• Asthma is the most common chronic disease in pregnancy
• The safety of short acting beta agonists and inhaled corticosteroids in pregnancy has been established
• Good preventive treatment is important and can improve maternal and infant outcomes
• Exacerbations should be treated as aggressively in pregnant as in non-pregnant women
• Every pregnant woman who has asthma should have a written asthma action plan
• It is more dangerous to have untreated asthma during pregnancy than to continue with the prescribed medications

1. Purpose of this statement

The aim of this position statement is to improve the quality of care for women with asthma during pregnancy, and was developed with the following objectives:

• Provide an evidence‐based approach to the management of asthma in pregnant women
• Improve consistency in the management of asthma in pregnant women;
• Assist health care providers with information to counsel pregnant women with asthma;
• Reduce maternal anxiety about their asthma and
• Improve outcomes for women and their babies.

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Update on Sponsorship Policy as of July 2019

The Board of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand (PSANZ) has decided that the society will no longer accept sponsorship from companies that produce or market infant formula. 
 
PSANZ has always supported breastfeeding and will continue to do so. PSANZ understands that specialised breastmilk substitutes are essential for the survival of some babies who cannot breastfeed. PSANZ will therefore continue to engage with formula milk companies in work related to the development and use of these specialised milks, but no further funding will be accepted. 
 
The PSANZ Board is thankful for all sponsors that have contributed to the development of our multidisciplinary society supporting high-quality perinatal research and the success of our annual events. An action plan and updated sponsorship policy that reflects these changes will be available in due course.

PSANZ Position Statement on pre-pregnancy obesity

We are pleased to announce the release of the PSANZ Position Statement on pre-pregnancy obesity. This position statement has been developed by a multidisciplinary working group of PSANZ members and has been endorsed by the Royal Australasian College Physicians.  Click here to download the Position Statement. 

Clinical practice guideline for the management of women who report decreased fetal movements

Using an evidence-based approach, this guideline aims to improve the management and outcome of care for women with DFM. The guideline covers 2 key areas, namely information provided to pregnant women regarding DFM, and management protocols for clinicians caring for women presenting with DFM.

You can download the current guideline from here.

PSANZ Clinical Practice Guideline for Care Around Stillbirth and Neonatal Death

The main purposes of the guideline is to enable a high quality systematic approach to the provision of care around the time of a perinatal death including investigation and audit and bereavement care for parents across Australia and New Zealand (ANZ).

Click here for the full guidelines.

National Antenatal Guidelines – Module 1

Please click here for further information relating to the National Antenatal Guidelines.

Antenatal Corticosteroid Guidelines

Evidence-based recommendations to guide decision-making in clinical practice in New Zealand and Australia.

To view the final version of "Antenatal Corticosteroids given to women prior to birth to improve fetal, infant, child and adult health: New Zealand and Australian clinical practice guidelines 2015", please click here.

WHO Preterm Birth Guidelines

WHO envisions a world where every woman and newborn receives quality care throughout pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period. One of the critical strategic areas identified by WHO to realise this vision is the development and dissemination of evidence-based guidelines to improve quality of care around the time of childbirth, including care to improve survival of babies born too soon or too small.

Today, WHO launches new guidance to improve pregnancy outcomes of women at imminent risk of preterm birth, and to improve neonatal outcomes of preterm infants soon after birth. The WHO recommendations on interventions to improve preterm birth outcomes are now available and can be accessed here.

This guideline contains 27 individual recommendations related to the use antenatal corticosteroids, tocolytics, antibiotics, magnesium sulfate (for fetal, infant and child neuroprotection), and mode of delivery for pregnant women at imminent risk of preterm birth; and key newborn interventions related to the use of Kangaroo mother care, plastic bags / wraps, continuous positive airway pressure, surfactant, and safe oxygen therapy for the preterm infant after birth.

The guideline publication is accompanied by a commentary in Lancet Global Health, available here. This commentary highlights key messages and describes the rationale for making the recommendations in some controversial topics. An evidence brief that summarizes the recommendations, their justifications and important policy and programme actions for effective implementation is also available here.

There is more information on the guideline in the WHO feature stories. We encourage you to disseminate the guideline and the related publications through your networks. WHO welcomes comments and suggestions on the published documents and these should be directed to mpa-info@who.int, mncah@who.int or reproductivehealth@who.int.

You can learn more and contribute to further discussion by following @HRPresearch on twitter.

European Standards of Care for Newborn Health

Please click here to view the toolkit   - https://newborn-health-standards.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ESCNH_Toolkit.pdf