Unintended pregnancy prevention and care education: Are we adequately preparing entry-to-practice nursing and midwifery students?

Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) demands an optimised workforce where nurses and midwives are able to provide the best quality care in accordance with their full scope of practice (World Health Organization 2020; Bender et al. 2016). However, political, legi slat ive , and educational barriers prevent nurses and m id wiv es from working to their full scope in the area of unintended pregnancy prevention and care (UPPC) ( Mainey et al. 2020). One important contributing factor is the inadequate coverage of the subject in nursing and midwifery curricula (Mainey et al. 2020). With un i ntend ed pregnancy and abortion affecting one-quarter of Australian wom en (Taft et al. 2018; Sch ei! et al. 2017), nursing and midwifery educators must seriously consider matching the scope of practice of graduating students to health needs of this population.