How entries are checked

The method in four habits

Every entry in this register is written, dated and numbered, then read by a second person before shelving. The method is deliberately modest:

Sources first. Health claims are checked against primary sources where they exist: NHS guidance, NICE guidelines, Cochrane reviews, the accredited registers. Where the register cites a historical claim, such as the prices once published at this address, it cites the dated capture, not the claim as fact.

Three columns. The register keeps what is established, what is uncertain, and what is not claimed, in separate columns. Relaxation reported by women goes in the first; effect sizes beyond rest and attention go in the second; cure, prevention and induction claims stay in the third, struck through where they appear on the wider internet.

The red-flag rule. Any entry that touches symptoms ends at the same place: bleeding, reduced movements, severe headache, sudden swelling and their neighbours are calls to the midwife, the GP or the maternity triage line, always before any complementary appointment.

Corrections in the open. A hand-kept register does not erase. When an entry is wrong, the line is struck, dated and left visible, with the corrected line beside it. Readers who spot an error can write to the register office; the correction, if warranted, is made where all can see it.

The limit of the method

The register is a desk publication, not a clinical service. Its checking is editorial, not medical: no entry here has been reviewed by a midwife or doctor, and the register says so rather than borrow authority it does not hold. For anything personal, the midwife's answer outranks this page.