Understanding the nature of the support many health professionals provide to women during the preconception period

The gap

Evidence profile

Sourced from the recommendations and future work and future-work section of the source papers, classified as general, drawn from work published between 2024 and 2026, spanning 3 journals. Those papers have been cited 16 times in total.

Supporting evidence — 3 representative gaps

• Utilization of preconception care and associated factors among HIV-positive women of reproductive age attending ART clinics in government health institutions of Gamo Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2021 (2026) · Scientific Reports · doi

  Based on the findings of the study the following recommendations are given for the concerned bodies. ARTICLE IN PRESSARTICLE IN PRESS ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Health institutions should strengthen on educating the importance of preconception care for all clients. Especially focuson less educational status, low monthly income and low and no history of pregnancy mother. Additionally, health institution arranges unit for pre-conception care service. Nongovernmental organizations should support health institutions to increase preconception care utilization by availing appropriate logistics and building preconception care service room, Town, Zonal, and Regional Health Offices should give special attention to preconception care services like other maternal and child services Federal Ministry of Health, policy makers are advised to incorporate preconception counseling and care for HIV-infected women as a routine part of primary health care to improve the utilization of preconception care Researchers who interest in factors affecting PCC among ART should conduct a strong study design.

  generalrecommendationsevidence 5/5
  Keywords: care health preconception article press institutions service utilization services based following recommendations given concerned bodies
• Women’s views on content and delivery methods for interventions to improve preconception health: a qualitative exploration (2024) · Frontiers in Public Health · cited 16× · doi

  Researchers, policymakers and practitioners should seek to develop and implement preconception interventions informed by the strategies we identified to enhance the appeal and acceptability of their delivery and content (16, 17). Our finding that women commonly considered GPs and practice nurses to be relatively trustworthy but inaccessible intervention delivery methods has implications for the English government’s aim for primary care professionals to have a role in supporting women’s preconception health (13). It suggests that to achieve this, strategies are needed to persuade women that seeking this support is an appropriate reason to see a GP or nurse. As primary care professionals have repeatedly reported capacity issues to be a major barrier to providing preconception care (27, 28), innovative, light-touch interventions may be required to build capacity for this. This could include raising the topic of preconception health in existing encounters relating to reproductive issues or women’s health, such as cervical smear tests and contraceptive counseling; participants considered this more acceptable than raising the topic ‘out of the blue’. If this approach is taken, future research should seek to identify the training and resources these professionals require to deliver this opportunistic preconception care in an acceptable way. An alternative interpretation of women’s reluctance to seek preconception care from primary care is that this further highlights a need to consider online and community-based opportunities for preconception health interventions (9, 31). Our findings highlight complexities for preconception health interventions and trade-offs that may be needed to tackle these. The possibility that a focus on weight may deter some women from engaging in preconception interventions is one such challenge. Obesity is considered a major public health issue (53) and pre-pregnancy obesity is a risk factor for common adverse pregnancy outcomes including pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes (4). On this basis, it is understandable that preconception health interventions should aim to reduce weight in mothers-to-be with obesity. However, policymakers and practitioners should consider the relative benefits of this approach against the risk of deterring these women from engaging in these interventions and potentially seeing improvements in other risk factors. They should be mindful of the stigma mothers with obesity already experience (54) and of concerns that medical practice draws on prevailing “biomedical discourse” to justify controlling women’s bodies (55). This highlights the potential merits of using ‘dark logic’ models in the early development of preconception health interventions, to explore the potential for unintended harmful effects (56). Future research should explore whether it may be more acceptable for these interventions to focus on weight-related behaviors, such as diet and exercise, rather than having explicit weight-based goals.

  generalfuture workevidence 5/5
  Keywords: preconception interventions women health care weight obesity seek considered primary professionals acceptable risk policymakers practitioners
• The Health, Wellbeing and Health Service Use of Women Attempting or Planning Pregnancy: A Nationwide Cross‐Sectional Survey of Australian Women (2026) · Birth · doi

  understand the nature of the support many health professionals provide to women during the preconception period - investigate the degree to which health professionals actively enquire about pregnancy intention - examine!!!!! their confidence in providing preconception health advice and the role they see themselves or others in their profession playing in the wider preconception care landscape

  generalfuture-work sectionevidence 5/5
  Keywords: understand nature support many health professionals provide women

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