Partnering with maternity services to increase guideline-recommended antenatal care for pregnancy weight gain, healthy eating, and physical activity
Tracks
ISBNPA 2024 Agenda
| Tuesday, May 21, 2024 |
| 2:15 PM - 2:55 PM |
| Room 216 |
Details
Supporting pregnant women to eat healthily, be physically active and to gain weight within guideline ranges is recommended in many countries to reduce the risk of poor pregnancy, birth and chronic disease outcomes for mothers and their children. However, up to 70% of pregnant women gain weight outside of recommended ranges, up to 70% do not meet physical activity recommendations, and <1% meet all dietary recommendations.
Clinical practice guidelines from many countries recommend that health care providers routinely assess weight of pregnant women, discuss recommended weight gain, nutrition, and physical activity, and offer referrals to support services if needed. In Australia, public maternity services (staffed by midwives, medical staff, and Aboriginal health workers) are a core provider of antenatal care and recognised as a key setting to provide preventive care for these health behaviours. Despite these guidelines, evidence suggests that the delivery of recommended care is less than optimal and inconsistently provided. Antenatal care providers face many barriers to providing such care, including lack of skills and confidence to have behaviour change conversations.
Over the last 7 years, our team of Population Health practitioners and researchers has partnered with public maternity services in the Hunter New England Local Health District in Australia (who deliver care to over 9000 pregnant women annually) to improve the provision of antenatal care for nutrition, physical activity, and pregnancy weight gain. I will present our work from project inception to now as we built this program of ‘real world’ implementation research. I will share our learnings from building relationships with partners, findings from surveys with pregnant women and clinicians to understand the local prevalence of care and barriers to care delivery, the development of localised care pathways and evidence-based implementation strategies, the results of pilot and feasibility studies, and an overview of current implementation-effect trials.
Clinical practice guidelines from many countries recommend that health care providers routinely assess weight of pregnant women, discuss recommended weight gain, nutrition, and physical activity, and offer referrals to support services if needed. In Australia, public maternity services (staffed by midwives, medical staff, and Aboriginal health workers) are a core provider of antenatal care and recognised as a key setting to provide preventive care for these health behaviours. Despite these guidelines, evidence suggests that the delivery of recommended care is less than optimal and inconsistently provided. Antenatal care providers face many barriers to providing such care, including lack of skills and confidence to have behaviour change conversations.
Over the last 7 years, our team of Population Health practitioners and researchers has partnered with public maternity services in the Hunter New England Local Health District in Australia (who deliver care to over 9000 pregnant women annually) to improve the provision of antenatal care for nutrition, physical activity, and pregnancy weight gain. I will present our work from project inception to now as we built this program of ‘real world’ implementation research. I will share our learnings from building relationships with partners, findings from surveys with pregnant women and clinicians to understand the local prevalence of care and barriers to care delivery, the development of localised care pathways and evidence-based implementation strategies, the results of pilot and feasibility studies, and an overview of current implementation-effect trials.
Chair
Jayna Dave
Associate Professor
Baylor College of Medicine
Speaker
Jenna Hollis
Clinical And Health Services Research Fellow
University of Newcastle
