You are the nurse educator on the labor and delivery floor in your large, urban hospital. Standard practice in your unit is that women are not allowed to eat or drink once they are in active labor. The staff on the labor and delivery unit wonder whether there is evidence to support this practice. You decide you are going to engage in an EBP project to search for the answer. After creating a PICOT question, searching, appraising, and synthesizing the body of evidence, you discover the evidence does not support keeping women NPO during labor. In spite of having a strong body of evidence that supports allowing women to decide whether or not they want to eat and drink during labor the obstetrician’s and anesthesiologist’s professional organizations recommend keeping women NPO during labor in their practice guidelines. Although the nurses and doctors wanted to follow the evidence, the doctors are hesitant. They decide to be innovative, so they create a research study exploring the impact of eating and drinking during labor. Laboring women were offered the opportunity to opt into the research study or not, allowing them to make the decision as to whether or not they are able to eat and drink during labor. How would you address the conflict between the evidence that supports allowing women to decide to eat and drink and the professional organizations recommendations to keep them NPO?
