Emergencies in childbearing from the French experience

Regional perinatal centers in Russia are being set up according to a presidential decree, thus furthering the implementation of the National project Zdorovye ("Health") that aims to improve Russia's demographic outlook, and further creating the conditions for accessible and high-quality health assistance to mothers and children, as well as lowering maternal and infant mortality.

Under this program, a training seminar was held in Paris in December with the theme "Emergencies in childbearing from the French experience". The seminar was supported by the Paris region's Department for Development of Health Care and the city's leading clinics.

The training course was led by French experts in teaching and practice in the field of childbearing, neonatology, anesthesia, and pediatrics who are specialized in emergency situations in childbearing, managing pregnancies with pathologies and resuscitating newborns. The participants of the course could familiarize themselves with the leading French measures and techniques for improving the territorial model for providing childbirth and neonatal care through a three-level system of perinatal centers.
The training program emphasized the most pressing issues today in reproductive medicine – prevention of illness and death for mothers and unborn children, miscarriage, management of pregnancies with extragenital pathologies and a high risk of childbearing complications, and issues of assistive technologies in reproductive medicine, maintaining reproductive health in the case of various illnesses, as well as the medical and social aspects of health for the middle-aged and elderly.

According to tradition, the seminar included firsthand visits to leading specialized clinics in Paris, where the Russian delegation was met at the departments for resuscitation and neonatology, as well as the maternity wards and surgical wards.

During the training session, the delegation also visited the newest simulator-based center for training medical staff in Paris, which develops methods for managing late stages of pregnancy, assistance in childbirth, and neonatal resuscitation.

This course served as an excellent space for colleagues to exchange information, and for gaining some foreign experience in managing patients in emergency cases. The seminar's format allowed attendees to not just listen to talks, but also to pose their own questions on acute issues of managing emergency cases of pathology in childbirth, and to have an in-depth discussion with their French colleagues, which is meant to raise the quality of maternity care in Russia's medical facilities.