Care bundles for women during pregnancy, labour/birth, and postpartum: a scoping review

Care bundles, introduced in 2001, are described as a set of at least three evidence-based healthcare interventions delivered together in a clinical care episode by all healthcare providers. Although widely implemented in some healthcare areas, care bundle use in maternity care appears relatively recent. To identify the types of care bundles that have been developed, evaluated, or implemented for women during the perinatal period, we undertook a scoping review.

Joanna Briggs Institute methodological guidance for scoping reviews was used. MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, Maternity and Infant Care, and Epistemonikos were searched from January 2000 to October 2023. Records that reported on women during pregnancy and up to six-weeks postpartum as the intended or actual recipients of a care bundle, were included. The concept of interest was development, evaluation, or implementation of a care bundle. The context was maternity care provision, in any setting or geographical location.

The search yielded 147 eligible records of which 69 originated in the USA. Most records were concerned with care bundle evaluation (n=74), and most were published in the last five-years (n=95). Eleven categories of clinical conditions were identified. These were surgical site infection, obstetric haemorrhage, perineal trauma, sepsis, stillbirth, hypertension, safe reduction of caesarean section, enhanced recovery after caesarean, placenta accrete, perinatal anxiety/depression, and 'other' which contained 21 records reporting on care bundles for one clinical condition. Few clinical conditions had good overlap of care bundle elements. Systematic reviews based on data from non-randomised studies may be feasible for some clinical conditions.

This scoping review provides comprehensive insight on care bundles in maternity care. Few studies were found that evaluated the effectiveness of these bundles, and many bundles for similar clinical conditions contained diverse elements. A more global approach to care bundle development, evaluation, and implementation in maternity care is recommended.