Self-care interventions for preconception, antenatal, intrapartum and postpartum care: a scoping review

Abstract

Objective: To identify current and emerging self-care interventions to improve maternity healthcare.

Design: Scoping review.

Data sources: MEDLINE, Embase, EmCare, PsycINFO, Cochrane CENTRAL/CDSR, CINAHL Plus (last searched on 17 October 2021).

Eligibility criteria: Evidence syntheses, interventional or observational studies describing any tool, resource or strategy to facilitate self-care in women preparing to get pregnant, currently pregnant, giving birth or post partum.

Data extraction/synthesis: Screening and data collection were conducted independently by two reviewers. Self-care interventions were identified based on predefined criteria and inductively organised into 11 categories. Characteristics of study design, interventions, participants and outcomes were recorded.

Results: We identified eligible 580 studies. Many included studies evaluated interventions in high-income countries (45%) and during antenatal care (76%). Self-care categories featuring highest numbers of studies were diet and nutrition (26% of all studies), physical activity (24%), psychosocial strategies (18%) and other lifestyle adjustments (17%). Few studies featured self-care interventions for sexual health and postpartum family planning (2%), self-management of medication (3%) and self-testing/sampling (3%). Several venues to introduce self-care were described: health facilities (44%), community venues (14%), digital platforms (18%), partner/peer support (7%) or over-the-counter products (13%). Involvement of health and community workers were described in 38% and 8% of studies, who supported self-care interventions by providing therapeutics for home use, training or counselling. The most common categories of outcomes evaluated were neonatal outcomes (eg, birth weight) (31%), maternal mental health (26%) and labour outcomes (eg, duration of labour) (22%).

Conclusion: Self-care interventions in maternal care are diverse in their applications, implementation characteristics and intended outcomes. Many self-care interventions were implemented with support from the health system at initial stages of use and uptake. Some promising self-care interventions require further primary research, though several are matured and up-to-date evidence syntheses are needed. Research on self-care in the preconception period is lacking.

Keywords: Antenatal; Health policy; Maternal medicine; PUBLIC HEALTH; REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE; SEXUAL MEDICINE.