MDWF 2070

Course Description

As midwives, we are responsible for providing high quality, comprehensive care to clients during their pregnancy and the birth of their baby. The expertise of midwives includes supporting and honoring uncomplicated pregnancy and birth. It must also include the knowledge, skill and ability to take action when intervention is necessary to improve health outcomes for client and baby. This expertise requires that midwives be knowledgeable about both life-saving medications and those used to ease common discomforts of pregnancy. 

This course will focus on the medications, both prescribed and available over the counter, that midwives will encounter when providing care for clients and newborns during the antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum periods. The course will provide an introduction to the ways in which pregnancy impacts the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of drugs and the actions of these drugs in the body. Protocols for both common and life-saving medications will be developed to assist you in caring for your clients. 

Learning Objectives: 

1. Basic pharmacological concepts 

2. Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics 

3. Pharmacovigilance 

4. Pharmacokinetics in pregnancy 

5. Teratology 

6. Over-the-counter medications in pregnancy 

7. Informed consent 

8. Drug protocols 

9. Rh0D Immune Globulin and Rh Alloimmunization 

10. Tdap vaccine and newborn pertussis 

11. Rubella and pregnancy 

12. Pharmacological abortive agents 

13. Tocolytic therapy and preterm labor 

14. Antibiotic therapy 

15. Antibiotics and Group B Strep 

16. Epinephrine and anaphylactic shock 

17. Antihemorrhagics and postpartum hemorrhage 

18. Intravenous fluids and hemorrhagic shock 

19. Local anesthesia and repair of lacerations 

20. Erythromycin ophthalmic ointment and ophthalmia neonatorum 

21. Vitamin K and vitamin K deficiency bleeding 

22. Antidepressants and Depression 

23. Local resources

Prerequisite: MDWF 2010 or currently a CPM/RM - completed May, 2021

3 credits