MCN: The American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing

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Welcome to MCN’s new website!  As the world moves toward internet communication above all other methodologies, Lippincott has taken up the challenge to help its nursing journal readers take full advantage of all that the world wide web has to offer. We have now launched a new and updated website for MCN, and I’m excited  to tell you about what we’ll be able to offer! If you subscribe to MCN, you have full access to the website. 

When each new issue of MCN is published, I’ll have a message on the site pointing out some of the reasons why the articles were chosen, and some special things about each of the articles to help peak your interest in reading them. I’m also including information about how (and why you’d want to) become a reviewer for MCN ; if you want to add a new educational experience to your bag of professional tricks as a nurse, this could be where you will start. You’ll also be able to find the names of MCN’s current list of peer reviewers, so they will always get the affirmation they deserve for the great job they do in their scholarly reviews of our manuscripts I’m planning to place some links to interesting collections of previously published articles on the site, so that if you’re like to see a whole grouping of what we’ve published on a particular topic like breastfeeding, or kangaroo care, for instance, you can see a grouping of those articles. Since I’m passionate about the idea of nurses publishing in journals, I’ll also have some tips for how you can get an article published. I’ll also post the names of the winners of the MCN Paper of the Year Awards annually, and maybe you’ll be inspired to submit an article and be in the running for that award next year! You’ll probably be interested in knowing what great articles are in the pipeline, already accepted and waiting for publication in MCN, so I’ll also put some titles of the upcoming articles in the next few issues in a section called Coming Soon, to whet your intellectual appetite! If there are announcements, such as Calls for Reviewers, or Calls for Submissions, those will appear on the website as well. If I have accepted a paper which I think is extremely important for practice and needs to be published quickly, I’ll be able to put that on the website before it even comes out in the print version, as “published ahead-of-print”. This website will allow both of us to enjoy MCN even more than we do right now!

There are many options for you with this new website. You can customize the site, save the searches you do for specific topics, and develop collections of articles important to you. You can have RSS feeds, and see which articles are most often downloaded; you can also email articles to colleagues. The new website will allow you to export references to citation manager software for use in an article you are writing, and you can export figures from MCN articles into Power Point. Those are only some of the new features of our website. I encourage all of you to start using all the functions of the new website, and contact me to tell me what you’re thinking, and what your favorite features are. I’m always happy to hear from readers so I can make the journal and website work even better for you, and what features you might enjoy. If I can do what you want, I’ll try to do it! Try out the new features on new website. I think you’ll be as thrilled as I am.

Margaret Comerford Freda, Editor

The March/April 2010 issue of MCN contains some wonderful feature articles and columns. Dr. Elaine Zwelling, a world-class expert on positioning in labor, has written an article for you about how to help women with movement in labor in order to enhance labor progress.  Don't miss it!  In another article about intrapartum care, Mary Kelly led a group of staff nurses in a research project at their institution to examine the effects of delayed versus immediate pushing in second stage. I know you'll find this fascinating, and you'll want to bring this to your unit for discussion. In another March/April article, Dr. Mary Ellen Doherty presents a study about what midwives think and feel about their profession.  It's an inspiring story of a "tapestry of challenges of blessings". 

I'm so pleased that Barbara Cottrell chose to submit an article to MCN on the dangers of douching.  You might be surprised when you read all the wonderful research she has compiled about this topic for you, and I hope it will cause you to inquire about douching with all your adolescent or adult patients.  Two other articles round out our feature articles for this issue:  Dr. Kathleen Fries studied unplanned cesarean births in African American women, and found some startling things that you can use to inform your practice tomorrow. What are women thinking when we're rushing around trying to set up an unplanned cesarean?  Now you'll know.  In the final article, Sharron Forest has written about nicotine replacement therapy in pregnancy.  Should it be used? What are the risks?  I know you'll find this most informative.

Of course we have our regular columns in this issue, as always, written by your favorite nurse experts.  Don't miss our debate column on visitiation in the NICU, our nutrition column on fish consumption, our health information technology column on how HIT is used in nursing clinical settings, our global health column on the importance of monetary loans to poverty-stricken mothers, our Toward Evidence Based Practice column which comments on 6 studies found in other journals to help keep you informed about your specialty, and our perinatal patient safety column on postpartum hemorrhage, one of the most serious complications we deal with. 

I think the March/April 2010 issue of MCN is excellent, and I'm sure you'll agree!  Happy reading!

Tips on Getting Published in MCN

Perhaps you would like to have an article published in MCN, but you’re new at the process, and not sure where to start.  Here are a few tips on how to begin. Read more...

How to Become a Peer Reviewer in MCN

MCN is always interested in hearing from qualified peer reviewers who want to read and critique submitted manuscripts for our journal.  If you are a loyal reader of MCN and other nursing literature, and you are currently practicing in one of the maternal child nursing specialties (perinatal, neonatal, midwifery, pediatrics), I’d like to suggest that some of you could actually contribute to the journal. Read more...