McDougall, B;
Kavanagh, K;
Stephenson, J;
Poston, L;
Flynn, AC;
White, SL;
(2021)
Health behaviours in 131,182 UK women planning pregnancy.
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
, 21
, Article 530. 10.1186/s12884-021-04007-w.
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Abstract
Background: A woman’s health at the time of conception lays the foundation for a healthy pregnancy and the lifelong health of her child. We investigated the health behaviours of UK women planning pregnancy. // Methods: We analysed survey data from the ‘Planning for Pregnancy’ online tool (Tommy’s, UK). We described all women planning pregnancy and compared the frequency of non-adherence to preconception recommendations in women who had already stopped contraception (active planners) and those who had not (non-active planners). // Results: One hundred thirty-one thousand one hundred eighty-two women from across the UK were included, of whom 64.8% were actively planning pregnancy. Of the whole cohort, twenty percent were smokers and less than one third took folic acid supplements (31.5%). Forty two percent engaged in less than the recommended 150 min of weekly physical activity and only 53.3% consumed five portions of fruit or vegetables 4 days a week. Smokers were 1.87 times more likely to be active planners than non-smokers (95% CI 1.79–1.94), and women who took folic acid were 7 times more likely to be active planners (95% CI 6.97–7.59) compared to women who did not. Smoking, drug use and lack of folic acid supplementation were common in younger women and those who were underweight. // Conclusions: This unique survey of UK women has identified poor adherence to preconception recommendations in those planning pregnancies and supports the need for a greater public health focus on preconception health. This study provides a contemporary basis from which to inform preconception health advice and a benchmark to measure changes over time.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Health behaviours in 131,182 UK women planning pregnancy |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12884-021-04007-w |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-021-04007-w |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. |
| 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 EGA Institute for Womens Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10132839 |
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