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Doha: Women’s Wellness and Research Center (WWRC) has pioneered the first-of-it-kind in Qatar midwifery led services aimed at normalising pregnancy and birth in accordance with the Qatar National Health Strategy’s (NHS 2018-2022) focus on healthy women leading to healthy pregnancies.
The midwifery services feature a unique midwifery led antenatal clinic (MLAC) as well as the midwifery led unit (MLU). The MLU is currently located in the labor and delivery ward which caters to women whose pregnancies have remained low risk until they go into labor.
MLAC offers support to low risk women during the antenatal period once they are referred from the primary care, private care or other health care facilities to the WWRC.
Antenatal care, also known as prenatal care, is a type of preventive healthcare to provide regular check-ups that allow doctors or midwives to identify, treat and prevent potential health problems in pregnant women.
“At their initial appointment in WWRC, a detailed and holistic assessment is undertaken to identify any risk factors that may be present at the time. Based on the findings of the assessment, women are then categorized as either low risk requiring midwifery led antenatal care, or high-risk requiring consultant/obstetric led antenatal care. Women classified as low risk are then cared for by a team of Clinical Midwife Specialists (CMS) and midwives in MLAC which has consulted over 800 women since its inception in August 2020.
The MLAC functions four days a week from 7am to 3pm, explains Sibo Marufu, CMS Lead.
To ensure continuity of care for the women seen in MLAC, the MLU which is a low risk delivery service operates throughout the week from 7am to 7pm.
