In 2000, Health Canada published "Canada - Family-Centred Maternity and Newborn Care: National Guidelines", the 4th Edition of the national guidelines for maternal and newborn care. This article describes the history of the Guidelines, the process undertaken for the production of the 4th Edition, and highlights the contents of the Guidelines.

"The guiding principles outlined in this chapter set the overall philosophy and serve as a foundation for advancing the implementation of family-centred maternity and newborn care (FCMNC) in Canada. Where family-centred initiatives are already underway, the principles also offer a broad direction on how these might be enhanced to improve care and outcomes. These updated principles and the following guideline chapters that flow from them reflect the important progress that has been made since Family-Centred Maternity and Newborn Care: National Guidelines was last updated in 2000. They also underline the continued evolution and progress that is required now and into the future"--Conclusion, p. 26.

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

Midwifery & Women's Health