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Exploring womens' experiences and decision making about physical activity during pregnancy and following birth: a qualitative study

Findley, A; Smith, DM; Hesketh, K; Keyworth, C; (2020) Exploring womens' experiences and decision making about physical activity during pregnancy and following birth: a qualitative study. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth , 20 (1) , Article 54. 10.1186/s12884-019-2707-7. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Physical activity (PA) tends to decline during pregnancy, and remains low in the early postpartum period, despite the known physical and psychological benefits. This study aimed to explore: (1) women's experiences of PA during pregnancy and following birth; and (2) decision-making processes related to PA during this time. METHODS: Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 16 women who were either pregnant or had recently given birth. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: There were two over-arching themes: (1) ownership of body, which consisted of the sub-themes: others try to take ownership, important to maintain fitness into pregnancy and motherhood, expectations of PA, and pressure to conform; and (2) unknown territory, which consisted of the sub-themes: engaging in PA with caution, and unclear advice. Decision-making about PA during pregnancy was influenced by: pressure from others who felt responsible to protect the woman from coming to harm; pressure from social media to lose weight postpartum; participant's beliefs about the benefits of maintaining fitness and participants expectations of how active they thought they would be able to be during pregnancy. Participants felt that pregnancy was an 'unknown territory' in terms of the unfamiliar feelings in their body and the inability to continually monitor their baby for reassurance of baby's health. Advice received from midwives was often lacking, or not tailored to the individual. Advice from friends and family was often regarded as incorrect, but still caused doubt and fear of PA during pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS: These findings contribute to the understanding of women's experiences of PA during pregnancy and post-partum, and their decision-making processes about PA during pregnancy. Developing accurate and tailored advice as part of midwifery care, that considers the physical and psychological aspects of engaging in PA during pregnancy, will help to ensure that women are supported to make informed decisions about their PA behaviour.

Type: Article
Title: Exploring womens' experiences and decision making about physical activity during pregnancy and following birth: a qualitative study
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/s12884-019-2707-7
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2707-7
Language: English
Additional information: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Keywords: Decision making, Physical activity, Postpartum, Pregnancy, Qualitative, Thematic analysis
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Population, Policy and Practice Dept
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10091783
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