Are you a UK midwife caring for pregnant women with two or more long term health conditions? A study is launched to investigate the experience of caring in complex circumstances. Stephanie Hanley, research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, and Sharon McCann, research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen, explain in the article.
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Caring for pregnant women with long term health conditions: call for research support
One in five pregnant women and birthing people have two or more active long-term health conditions. These can be both physical conditions (like diabetes or raised blood pressure), and mental health conditions (such as depression or anxiety). Often, they also must take several medications to manage their different health needs. Having two or more health conditions is also becoming more common during pregnancy, as women and birthing people are increasingly older when they start a family and as obesity and mental health conditions are on the rise, in general. This can make pregnancy, healthcare and managing medications more complicated.
Whilst there are many examples of research exploring individuals’ experiences and care pathways for pregnancy with a single health condition, we have identified scant evidence relating to multimorbidity. Exploring the experiences and care of these women is crucial as without a deeper understanding of the problem, women and birthing people with multiple long-term health conditions may not have the best and safest experience of care before, during and after pregnancy, as services have not been designed with their health needs in mind.
To help address this gap, we would like to hear from UK healthcare professionals, including midwives, involved in the care of pregnant and postnatal women with two or more long-term health conditions, and their babies. As well as health professionals in maternity care, we’re interested in hearing from other NHS staff in other areas of healthcare, who are involved in the care of pregnant women with multimorbidity.
Taking part in this qualitative research would involve participating in a short interview
(virtual/telephone/in person) to talk about how care is currently delivered and how care and pathways can be improved to better meet the needs of women, their babies, and families. Dr Stephanie Hanley ( @shanley29) based at the University of Birmingham and Dr Sharon McCann ( @SharonKMcCann) at the University of Aberdeen are the two Research Fellows conducting the interviews.
Data collection is currently ongoing, and it is anticipated that we will be recruiting until the end of 2022. Following the collection and analysis of interview data, we will work with families and health professionals to review the results and co-produce a list of recommendations to inform future improvements to maternity care for pregnant women living with multimorbidity.
This portfolio-adopted study forms part of the larger MuM-PreDiCT project; a collaboration of eight academic institutions and NHS partners across all four countries of the UK and supported by the MRC and HDRUK. Further information about the MuM-PreDiCT project can be found here: https://mumpredict.org.
We’d love to hear from you, please get in touch!
Stephanie Hanley, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham
Sharon McCann, research Fellow, University of Aberdeen
September 2022
If you are interested, or you would like to find out more please contact Stephanie at [email protected].
FB page: https://www.facebook.com/mumpredict.
