Involving and engaging pregnant women in maternity-related research: reflections on an innovative approach

Abstract

Plain English summary Making sure that the public are involved in research is really important. It can sometimes be hard for pregnant women to get involved with research because they are only pregnant for a short amount of time and they are often busy with other things. This means that the research might only feel directly relevant and important to them for a short time. We designed a new way to encourage pregnant women to get involved and engaged in research. We did this by offering a free pregnancy yoga class to women. This class included a ‘question and answer’ session with a midwife and a discussion with a researcher about some research to do with pregnancy. We ran two classes a week, in two different parts of Birmingham, United Kingdom (UK). The classes took place between May and December 2018 and 67 different women attended the classes. We wanted to see if this was a good way to involve and engage pregnant women in research, so we did a simple evaluation. We used some questionnaires and notes that we had made. We found that the sessions were helpful for both women and researchers. Women enjoyed being involved in the research and told us they had felt healthier and less stressed from the yoga. Researchers found it really useful to be able to talk to women from lots of different backgrounds and experiences. There were some difficult parts of running the sessions, like the costs, and the time needed from us to make sure sessions ran smoothly.

Keywords

• Patient and public involvement
• Research engagement
• Pregnancy
• Pregnancy yoga
• Exercise in pregnancy
• Maternity research