Infection Prevention, Safety and Quality in Maternity Care
What this domain tests
Infection Prevention, Safety and Quality in Maternity Care tests the everyday systems that stop harm: hand hygiene, asepsis at birth, sharps and waste handling, surgical safety, incident reporting, and the quality indicators audited in Jordanian maternity units.
Core rules
- Hand hygiene. WHO 5 moments - before patient contact, before an aseptic procedure, after body fluid exposure risk, after patient contact, after contact with surroundings. Alcohol rub for clean hands; soap and water when visibly soiled.
- Asepsis at birth. Clean hands, clean surface, clean cord-cutting instrument and sterile gloves; limit vaginal examinations; sterile technique for perineal repair and catheterisation.
- PPE and sharps. Gloves, apron and eye protection as risk dictates; never recap; dispose immediately into a puncture-resistant container filled to no more than three-quarters.
- Waste. Segregate at the point of generation - infectious waste and sharps into designated colour-coded containers, general waste separately, placentas per unit policy.
- Surgical safety checklist. Sign-in, time-out and sign-out for caesarean sections, including swab and instrument counts.
- Governance. Report incidents and near-misses without blame; take part in maternal death surveillance and response (MDSR) and clinical audit. The Health Care Accreditation Council (HCAC) accredits Jordanian hospitals against national standards.
- Indicators audited locally. Primary caesarean rate, episiotomy rate, PPH, third- and fourth-degree tears, skin-to-skin within 5 minutes, early breastfeeding initiation.
Worked example
After a normal birth you find the sharps container three-quarters full with a needle protruding. Do not press the contents down: close and replace the container at once, place the needle in a new container, and report the near-miss. The response targets the system, not only the individual.
Traps that cost marks
Wearing gloves instead of performing hand hygiene; assuming a low-risk birth needs no asepsis; recapping needles; staying silent about a near-miss; accepting an episiotomy rate of 60% as normal rather than an outlier for review.