How can we best use opportunities provided by routine maternity care to engage women in improving their diets and health?
How can we best use opportunities provided by routine maternity care to engage women in improving their diets and health?
Pregnancy provides motivation for women to improve their diets and increase their physical activity. Opportunistic brief interventions delivered as part of routine primary care have produced improvements in patients' health behaviour. Consequently, there have been calls for midwives to use contacts during pregnancy in this way. This study explored the experiences of pregnant women and research midwives/nurses of a brief intervention called Healthy Conversation Skills (HCS) being delivered as part of a randomised control trial, assessing the acceptability and feasibility of including this intervention in routine maternity care. Three research questions were addressed using mixed methods to produce four datasets: face‐to‐face interviews with participants, a focus group with the HCS‐trained midwives/nurses, case reports of participants receiving HCS and audio‐recordings of mid‐pregnancy telephone calls to the women which produced midwife/nurse HCS competency scores. Midwives/nurses used their HCS to support women to make plans for change and set goals. Women welcomed the opportunity to address their own health and well‐being as distinct from that of their baby. Midwives/nurses were competent in using the skills and saw healthy conversations as an effective means of raising issues of diet and physical activity. Recent extension of maternity appointment times provides ideal opportunities to incorporate a brief intervention to support behaviour change. Incorporating HCS training into midwifery education and continuing professional development would facilitate this. HCS is a scalable, brief intervention with the potential to improve the diets and physical activity levels of women during pregnancy, and hence the health of themselves and their babies.
Healthy Conversation Skills, brief intervention, diet, physical activity, pregnancy, routine maternity care
Lawrence, Wendy
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Vogel, Christina
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Strommer, Sofia
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Morris, Taylor
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Treadgold, Bethan, Mair
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Watson, Daniella
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Hart, Kate
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Mcgill, Karen I
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Hammond, Julia
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Harvey, Nicholas
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Cooper, Cyrus
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Inskip, Hazel
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Baird, Janis
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Barker, Mary
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1 January 2020
Lawrence, Wendy
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Vogel, Christina
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Strommer, Sofia
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Morris, Taylor
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Treadgold, Bethan, Mair
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Watson, Daniella
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Hart, Kate
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Mcgill, Karen I
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Hammond, Julia
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Harvey, Nicholas
ce487fb4-d360-4aac-9d17-9466d6cba145
Cooper, Cyrus
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Inskip, Hazel
5fb4470a-9379-49b2-a533-9da8e61058b7
Baird, Janis
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Barker, Mary
374310ad-d308-44af-b6da-515bf5d2d6d2
Lawrence, Wendy, Vogel, Christina, Strommer, Sofia, Morris, Taylor, Treadgold, Bethan, Mair, Watson, Daniella, Hart, Kate, Mcgill, Karen I, Hammond, Julia, Harvey, Nicholas, Cooper, Cyrus, Inskip, Hazel, Baird, Janis and Barker, Mary
(2020)
How can we best use opportunities provided by routine maternity care to engage women in improving their diets and health?
Maternal & Child Nutrition, 16 (1), [e12900].
(doi:10.1111/mcn.12900).
Abstract
Pregnancy provides motivation for women to improve their diets and increase their physical activity. Opportunistic brief interventions delivered as part of routine primary care have produced improvements in patients' health behaviour. Consequently, there have been calls for midwives to use contacts during pregnancy in this way. This study explored the experiences of pregnant women and research midwives/nurses of a brief intervention called Healthy Conversation Skills (HCS) being delivered as part of a randomised control trial, assessing the acceptability and feasibility of including this intervention in routine maternity care. Three research questions were addressed using mixed methods to produce four datasets: face‐to‐face interviews with participants, a focus group with the HCS‐trained midwives/nurses, case reports of participants receiving HCS and audio‐recordings of mid‐pregnancy telephone calls to the women which produced midwife/nurse HCS competency scores. Midwives/nurses used their HCS to support women to make plans for change and set goals. Women welcomed the opportunity to address their own health and well‐being as distinct from that of their baby. Midwives/nurses were competent in using the skills and saw healthy conversations as an effective means of raising issues of diet and physical activity. Recent extension of maternity appointment times provides ideal opportunities to incorporate a brief intervention to support behaviour change. Incorporating HCS training into midwifery education and continuing professional development would facilitate this. HCS is a scalable, brief intervention with the potential to improve the diets and physical activity levels of women during pregnancy, and hence the health of themselves and their babies.
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 30 September 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 November 2019
Published date: 1 January 2020
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
We thank the mothers who gave us their time, the SPRING team for their assistance with the study, and Carol Chapman and Ilse Bloom for running the focus group with the midwives/nurses. JB, MB, NCH, and TM have received funding from Danone NutriciaEarly Life Nutrition. Members of HI's team have received funding fromNestec and Abbott Nutrition. CC reports personal fees, consultancy,lecture fees, and honoraria from Alliance for Better Bone Health,Amgen, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Medtronic, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer,Roche, Servier, and Takeda, outside the submitted work. NCH reportspersonal fees, consultancy, lecture fees, and honoraria from Alliancefor Better Bone Health, AMGen, MSD, Eli Lilly, Servier, Shire,Consilient Healthcare, and Internis Pharma, outside the submittedwork. WL reports consultancy and lecture fees from Danone Nutricia,outside the submitted work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Authors. Maternal & Child Nutrition published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Keywords:
Healthy Conversation Skills, brief intervention, diet, physical activity, pregnancy, routine maternity care
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 436333
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/436333
ISSN: 1740-8695
PURE UUID: 12c83a0c-3489-40b7-8ab1-aae1026d8cb1
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Date deposited: 06 Dec 2019 17:30
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 05:12
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Author:
Taylor Morris
Author:
Kate Hart
Author:
Karen I Mcgill
Author:
Julia Hammond
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