Antepartum care in the twenty-first century

Major factors impacting on antepartum care in the twenty-first century were reviewed in this article, including the impact of managed care and collaborative health care teams, the malpractice crisis, antepartum visits and the quality of care, increased use of the Internet and computer technology, the increasing age of childbearing, advances in genetic and prenatal diagnosis, the importance of evidence-based medicine, the goals of Healthy People 2010 [11], the Safe Mother Initiative, and the use of complementary and alternative medicine. Recommendations for antepartum care in the twenty-first century include; the formation of integrated collaborative health care teams to deal with the effects of managed care; development of a more sensitive health care system to assist all parties involved with medical malpractice; increased expertise in the use of the Internet and computer technology; acknowledging and preparing for the increased population of older gravidas; becoming aware of advances in genetic and prenatal diagnosis; increasing the ability to critically evaluate research and incorporate well-founded study findings into clinical practice; incorporating the goals of Healthy People 2010 [11] when providing care to antepartum patients; contributing resources and manpower to the Safe Mother Initiative to decrease maternal mortality in developing countries; becoming knowledgeable, obtaining adequate training, and utilizing or performing evidence-based studies to validate the use of complementary and alternative medicine in antepartum practice; and finally to find a balance between the factors impacting on prenatal care and the ability to continue to provide safe, high-quality, continuous, sensitive, and humane antepartum care.