New Programme for Antenatal Preparation for Early Parenthood

Summary

Becoming a parent is a challenging stage in life, which provokes feelings of both excitement and insecurity; parents strive to develop confidence in their parenting role. Studies show that new parents often feel inadequately prepared for early parenthood which may have a negative impact on adjustment to life as a parent as well as health and wellbeing for the whole family.

The overall aim is to develop, pilot test and evaluate a new programme for antenatal preparation for the early parenthood period. The hypothesis is that expectant first-time parents who receive an intervention with a new programme for antenatal preparation for parenthood will show higher scores for parental self-efficacy in the early parenthood period than those who do not receive the intervention. The specific aims for the pilot study are:

1. To assess the acceptability of the procedures for parents and providers (midwives)
2. To estimate the likely rates of recruitment and retention of participants
3. To estimate the effects on outcome measurements in order to calculate the appropriate sample size in a full scale randomized controlled trial (RCT).

Antenatal clinics will be randomised to either intervention group, and provide a new programme of antenatal parental preparation, or to control group and provide a regular programme of antenatal parental preparation. First-time expectant parents will be invited in early pregnancy by the midwives at the antenatal clinics to participate in the study by partaking in an evaluation of the different ways to provide antenatal parental preparation. Parents who agree to participate will receive postal questionnaires before the antenatal parental preparation start and approximately four weeks after giving birth.

Midwives working in antenatal clinics randomised to the intervention group will receive a one-day-education before providing the intervention antenatal parental preparation. These midwives will also receive questionnaires, after the education and after providing the antenatal parental preparation.

All midwives, in both control group and intervention group, providing antenatal parental preparation will be given a form with questions related to the content in the provided programme to fill in.

Conditions

• Parents

Interventions

OTHER

New programme

Time for topics related to the time after birth and in reversed chronological order to give an early and joint focus on parenthood for both parents. Involving new parents to share their experiences of early parenthood with expectant parents. Introducing and using evidence-based websites in the sessions A breastfeeding preparation that gives tools to meet common challenges in the initial phase of breastfeeding. Based on principles for adult learning. Sessions 1. Introduction, life-change of becoming a parent and co-parenting 2. Early parenthood 3. Breastfeeding, caring for the baby and early parenthood 4. and 5 Labour, birth and postnatal care

OTHER

Regular programme

Antenatal parental preparation "as usual". As no guidelines exist the number of sessions may vary between 2 and 3 sessions and smaller variations in content may also occur. Sessions 1. (or 1 and 2) Labour, birth and postnatal care 2. or 3 Breastfeeding, caring for the baby and early parenthood

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Lund University

  collaborator OTHER

• Region Skane

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Linda J Kvist, PhD · Lund University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-09-03

Primary Completion

2019-10-31

Completion

2019-10-31

Countries

• Sweden

Study Locations