Section 1: Care activities

The birthing unit has at least one pre-delivery room equipped to receive the woman in labour, prepare her for delivery and monitor the onset of labour. The pre-labour room has the same equipment as a hospital room. If necessary, the pre-labour room can be used as a labour room if it is equipped accordingly.

The birth unit has at least one labour room. All equipment and devices are immediately available and for the exclusive use of the labour room. The labour room is set up so that the parturient can benefit from clinical and paraclinical monitoring of the progress of labour, the expulsion phase and delivery. This monitoring continues for two hours after the birth. The newborn receives first aid. The facilities are equipped…

The birthing unit has at least one obstetric surgery room, which can be used for any abdomino-pelvic surgery related to pregnancy or childbirth requiring general or loco-regional anaesthesia, including in emergencies. Post-intervention monitoring of the parturient is carried out under the conditions of continuous monitoring mentioned in articles D. 6124-97 et seq., either in a post-intervention monitoring room located in the immediate vicinity of the operating theatre, or in the…

The organisation and resources of the rooms for observation and immediate care of newborn babies enable the necessary first aid to be given to the child and any serious distress of the newborn to be dealt with immediately. Medical preparation for the transport of children whose condition requires them to be transferred to specialised units, either inside or outside the health establishment, is carried out in these rooms.

The establishment ensures that the laboratory and imaging tests required for the mother and the newborn are carried out, including in emergencies. Establishments that do not have their own laboratory will sign an agreement with a laboratory providing for the performance and transmission of results at any time, under conditions and within timescales that guarantee the quality of care.

The number of staff working in the birthing sector may not at any time be less than the following: 1° Midwives: a) For any obstetrics unit with less than 1,000 births per year, one midwife is present and permanently assigned to the birth sector; b) For more than 1,000 births per year, the total number of midwives in the birth sector is increased by one full-time midwife for every 200…

The Maternity Ward provides pre- and post-natal care for the mother, as well as care for healthy newborn babies. The rooms in the post-delivery sector include a maximum of two beds for mothers with cots for their children. If necessary, each patient may be allocated a single room. In the event of the creation of an inpatient sector, or the reconstruction or redevelopment of an existing sector, the latter must…

During their stay in the in-patient sector, the mother and child benefit from the possibility of intervention every day of the year, twenty-four hours a day, including in emergencies, by a paediatrician, a gynaecologist-obstetrician and an anaesthetist-resuscitator. The unit is organised in such a way as to be able to call on the services of a psychologist or psychiatrist as required. The number of staff working in the inpatient sector…

The area specifically dedicated to the preparation of feeding bottles is divided, where necessary, into two separate areas, one for the preparation of food for newborns and the other for the maintenance of feeding bottles.

In order to give priority to the mother-child relationship, short-term care for children born in the obstetrics unit and suffering from non-serious conditions that do not require hospitalisation in the neonatology unit may be carried out in the hospitalisation sector provided that the conditions defined in this article are met. These new-born babies may, if necessary, be isolated from healthy new-born babies, treated and monitored at all times in a…