Increasing the rate of patient education regarding maternal postpartum complications in hospital affiliated outpatient obstetric/gynecologic clinics

There are mothers today that are experiencing symptoms post-partum but will not report them to their health care providers for fear of overreacting or because they do not recognize the dangers of these signs (Preeclampsia Foundation, 2022). This inability to recognize warning signs for postpartum complications or the hesitancy to act on them can lead to increased adverse events for mother and baby. The point of this quality improvement project was to increase the awareness of postpartum complications by giving specific information about post birth warning signs to pregnant women. The review of literature identified that educational tools, handouts, videos, and counseling in the perinatal period increased knowledge retention of postpartum complications in mothers prenatally. An educational PowerPoint was developed to introduce and reeducate staff on the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) Post Birth Warning Signs handout, and why it should be utilized in clinics. Copies of the PowerPoint and the AWHONN Post Birth Warning Signs were made available to staff. An auditing tool was created for a retrospective chart audit to evaluate use of the educational tool five weeks post intervention and again three weeks post intervention.