General introduction

Motivation for development of the guidelines

Clinical practice has become more complex and difficult because of the enormous increase in knowledge and research. For this reason, guidelines are becoming more important in clinical practice and are helping clinicians to take the right clinical decisions. The increasing number of guidelines forces guideline developers to find innovations that will make guideline development feasible in the coming years. One of these innovations is to develop guidelines not only for one country but to collaborate with several countries and divide the efforts and costs across the participating countries.

 

Guideline goal

To develop European collaborative evidence-based guidelines for several topics in obstetrics.

 

Guideline scope

The guideline focuses on several obstetric topics for which no national guideline was available in any of the four participating countries at the start of the project (2018). The following subjects were addressed: umbilical cord prolapse, corticosteroids for planned caesarean sections after 34 weeks of gestation, antenatal care and induction of labour for women with pregnancies after IVF/ICSI.

 

Intended audience for the guideline

The guideline aims to provide practical guidance for health care providers in maternity settings. Patient information is currently being developed.