Prepping for healthy moms & babies. Making the case for preconception care & counseling

Women's Desire for Pregnancy

Descriptive qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 women who had given birth in the previous 5 years to identify factors that influenced their desire to become pregnant. All interviews were audiotaped. Following the interviews, the texts were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using Giorgi's method. Five themes emerged from the interviews: (1) timing; (2) spacing; (3) meeting personal criteria; (4) desire for the experience of pregnancy, birth, and parenting; and (5) extended family in close proximity. The study's findings offer an initial step in understanding the attitudes, motivations, and beliefs of healthy childbearing women and their desire for pregnancy. Increased understanding may help health-care providers develop interventions that not only assist women to conceive as desired but also prevent unplanned pregnancies.

The effectiveness of bundled health messages on recall

PURPOSE

This study is an initial step in determining the effectiveness of bundling preconception messages on short-term recall in a health communication intervention.

DESIGN

A six-cell quasi-experiment with control was employed.

SETTING

Mall intercept interviews were conducted in three southern cities.

INTERVENTION

Six professionally developed brochures with preconception health messages.

SUBJECTS

687 women who were between 18 and 36 years old and who reported that they planned to be pregnant within the next 5 years.

MEASURES

Aided and unaided message recall.

ANALYSIS

Analysis of variance, pair-wise t-tests.

RESULTS

The results suggest ways to combine health messages in an attempt to maximize the resources that individual programs have for communication.

CONCLUSION

Combining messages, up to four, should be considered.

Where is the "W"oman in MCH?

Scientific evidence indicates that improving a woman's health before pregnancy will improve pregnancy outcomes. However, for many years, our efforts have focused primarily on prenatal care and on caring for infants after birth. The concept of preconception care has been identified repeatedly as a priority for improving maternal and infant health. Preconception care is not something new that is being added to the already overburdened healthcare provider, but it is a part of routine primary care for women of reproductive age. Many opportunities exist for preconception intervention, and much of preconception care involves merely the provider reframing his or her thinking, counseling, and decisions in light of the reproductive plans and sexual and contraceptive practices of the patient. With existing scientific evidence that improving the health of "W"omen will improve the health of mothers and children, we must focus on improving the health of "W"omen before pregnancy and put the "W" in Maternal and Child Health.