Zoe Darwin

• University of Huddersfield

Background Stakeholder engagement is widely considered democratic, transparent, and essential in the shared decision-making process for improving health services. However, the integrated evidence of stakeholders’ engagement activities in maternal and newborn health (MNH) services in the context of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is lacking...

Background/Aims Personalised care is associated with high-quality, safe maternity care. Limited evidence exists on midwives' perception of personalised care and potential barriers and facilitators associated with implementing it in practice. The aim of this study was to explore midwives' perspectives of personalised care. Methods An online mixed-m...

Background COVID‐19 created specific challenges for new and expectant parents and perinatal services. Services changed rapidly in the United Kingdom (UK), including the withdrawal of home birth services, birth center closures, and restrictions on the number of birth partners allowed in the birth room. The purpose of this study was to examine how th...

Introduction Perinatal mental health (PMH) conditions affect around one in four women, and may be even higher in women from some ethnic minority groups and those living in low socioeconomic circumstances. Poor PMH causes significant distress and can have lifelong adverse impacts for some children. In England, current prevalence rates are estimated...

Background Service user and stakeholder engagement have been widely considered as key aspects in translating knowledge into realistic policies and practices. However, there is a paucity of accumulative evidence about service user and stakeholder engagements in maternal and newborn health (MNH) research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). T...

Background: Perinatal mental health difficulties affect up to 27% of birthing parents during pregnancy and the first postnatal year, and if untreated are associated with difficulties in bonding and long-term adverse outcomes to children. There are large evidence gaps related to psychological treatment, particularly in group therapy approaches and...

Co-design with people having poor access to health services and fragile health systems in low-and middle-income countries can be momentous in bringing service users and other stakeholders together to improve the delivery and utilisation of health services. There is ample of evidence from high-income countries regarding how co-design can translate a...

Objective: Partners of birthing mothers can themselves experience perinatal mental health (PMH) difficulties. Despite birth rates increasing amongst LGBTQIA+ communities and the significant impact of PMH difficulties, this area is under-researched. This study aimed to examine the experiences of perinatal depression and anxiety of non-birthing moth...

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the training and implementation of the gravimetric method for estimating postpartum blood loss in clinical practice in Indonesian midwife-led birth centres. Background: Postpartum haemorrhage remains a leading cause of maternal death, particularly in low-resource settings. There is no gold standard for assess...

Pregnant women were identified as being at elevated risk from COVID-19 early in the pandemic. Certain restrictions were placed upon birth partners accompanying their pregnant partner to in-person maternity consultations and for in-patient maternity care. In the absence of a central directive in England, the nature of restrictions varied across mate...

This article draws on illustrative fieldnotes and interview transcripts from a recent ethnographic study into midwife-father communication during childbirth,1 which identified that the practice of the midwife inviting the father to ‘cut the cord’ after the baby’s birth appears to have become commonplace. This article explores midwives’ and fathers’...

LGBTQ+ parenting refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people raising one or more children. This includes children raised by same-sex couples (same-sex parenting), children raised by single LGBTQ+ parents and children raised by an opposite-sex couple where at least one partner is LGBTQ+. Increasing numbers of LGBTQ+ peopl...

This is the second of a three-part series drawing on an ethnographic study of midwife-father communications during labour and birth.1 Fathers frequently report feeling unprepared for birth, even when they have attended antenatal classes. This article explores the ‘routine’ question that midwives posed to fathers, concerning attendance at antenatal...

Background Perinatal mental health (PMH) difficulties affect approximately one in five birthing women. If not identified and managed appropriately, these PMH difficulties can carry impacts across generations, affecting mental health and relationship outcomes. There are known inequalities in identification and management across the healthcare pathwa...

This article is the first of a three-part series drawing on the findings of a doctoral study of midwife-father communications during labour and birth.1 Recognising birth as a ‘social experience’, it questions the arbitrary limits placed on the number of supporters permitted to accompany the birthing woman. It offers a new perspective on the presenc...

Background: Approximately 3-5% of women experience post-traumatic stress disorder following birth; positive experiences that can follow traumatic birth are under-researched. Aims and objectives: To explore how women experience post-traumatic growth following a traumatic birth. Methods: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to explo...

Background During 2020, UK maternity services made changes to service delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Aims To explore service users' and their partners' experiences of maternity services in the North of England during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Respondents (n=606) completed a co-produced survey during August 2020. Data were ana...

Data from Wave 1 of The PRegnancy And Motherhood during COVID 19 Study [The PRaM Study]. Research taken from JRIP Editorial: “ Challenges and opportunities for child health services in responses to the COVID19 pandemic”

This guide is for specialist perinatal mental health services and commissioners. It relates to the families of mothers receiving care from inpatient and community specialist perinatal mental health teams. This includes partners, grandparents of the baby, siblings of the baby, and any significant others identified by the mother. It covers how to sup...

Introduction: Five to 10 percentage of fathers experience perinatal depression and 5–15% experience perinatal anxiety, with rates increasing when mothers are also experiencing perinatal mental health disorders. Perinatal mental illness in either parent contributes to adverse child and family outcomes. While there are increasing calls to assess the...

Introduction: Father-infant interactions are important for optimal offspring outcomes. Moreover, paternal perinatal psychopathology is associated with psychological and developmental disturbances in the offspring, and this risk may increase when both parents are unwell. While, the father-offspring relationship is a plausible mechanism of risk trans...

Background: Many trans and non-binary people wish to be parents. However, few countries record figures for trans and non-binary people becoming pregnant/impregnating their partners. Pregnant non-binary people and trans men may be growing populations, with heightened vulnerabilities to traumatic birth and perinatal mental health difficulties (i.e. p...

Background: This review aimed to identify and synthesise evidence of Muslim women's experiences of maternity services in the UK. A systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative evidence, unrestricted by type of publication was conducted. Muslim women who had accessed maternity services in the UK, regardless of obstetric or medical histor...

Background Perinatal mental health problems affect approximately 20% of women. The most common condition is postnatal depression; however, many women do not seek help.AimsTo identify and synthesise evidence on factors that enable or prevent help-seeking in women with depressive symptoms in the postnatal period.MethodsA qualitative systematic review...

Background: Perinatal mental health problems affect approximately 20% of women, the most common condition being postnatal depression; however many women do not seek help. Aims: To identify and synthesise evidence on the barriers and facilitators to help-seeking in women with depressive symptoms in the postnatal period. Methods: A qualitative system...

myfood24 is an online 24 hr dietary recall tool developed for nutritional epidemiological research. Its clinical application has been unexplored. This mixed methods study explores the feasibility and usability of myfood24 as a food record in a clinical population, women with gestational diabetes (GDM). Women were asked to complete five myfood24 foo...

myfood24 is a comprehensive self-completed online 24-hour dietary recall tool currently used for nutritional assessments in epidemiological research. However, its clinical application has been unexplored. This mixed methods prospective observational study explores the acceptability and usability of myfood24 in a clinical population, women with gest...

Pregnancy and the transition to parenthood involve great psychological adaptation, including the development of the woman's relationship with her unborn child - the maternal-fetal relationship (MFR). MFR manifests in a woman's thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours towards her developing baby. Routine psychosocial assessment increasingly feat...

Background: Mothers face increased vulnerability to mental health problems during the perinatal period; this is also true for fathers with 5-10% experiencing depression [1] and 5-15% experiencing anxiety [2]. Perinatal mental health (PMH) problems in either parent places children at increased risk of adverse emotional and behavioural outcomes [3]....

Engaging fathers has the potential to benefit the entire family through promoting fathers' wellbeing directly; building on fathers' vital capacity to support mothers' psychological wellbeing; maternal health behaviours; and promoting children's mental health and development. Benefits to a child's development include positive impacts on cognitive de...

Engaging fathers has the potential to benefit the entire family through 1. promoting fathers’ wellbeing directly, 2. building on fathers’ vital capacity to support mothers’ psychological wellbeing, 3. maternal health behaviours, and 4. promoting children’s mental health and development. Benefits to a child’s development include positive impacts on...

Background The prevalence of fathers’ depression and anxiety in the perinatal period (i.e. from conception to 1 year after birth) is approximately 5–10%, and 5–15%, respectively; their children face increased risk of adverse emotional and behavioural outcomes, independent of maternal mental health. Critically, fathers can be protective against the...

Background: Support from a doula is known to have physical and emotional benefits for mothers, but there is little evidence about the experiences of volunteer doulas. This research aimed to understand the motivation and experiences of volunteer doulas who have been trained to support women during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. Methods...

Background: Midwives are increasingly expected to promote healthy behaviour to women and pregnancy is often regarded as a 'teachable moment' for health behaviour change. This view focuses on motivational aspects, when a richer analysis of behaviour change may be achieved by viewing the perinatal period through the lens of the Capability-Opportunit...

'Doulas' (lay women who are trained to support other women during pregnancy, birth and postnatally) can improve outcomes for disadvantaged mothers and babies. This Realist Evaluation study uses qualitative interviews to explore the views of staff, commissioners and local champions about the processes of establishing and sustaining five volunteer do...

'Doulas' (lay women who are trained to support other women during pregnancy, birth and postnatally) can improve outcomes for disadvantaged mothers and babies. This Realist Evaluation study uses qualitative interviews to explore the views of staff, commissioners and local champions about the processes of establishing and sustaining five volunteer do...

Disadvantaged childbearing women experience barriers to accessing health and social care services and face greater risk of adverse medical, social and emotional outcomes. Support from doulas (trained lay women) has been identified as a way to improve outcomes; however, in the UK doula support is usually paid-for privately by the individual, limitin...

Download the full report here: http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hsdr/volume-3/issue-34#abstract Background Self-management support interventions can improve health outcomes, but their impact is limited by the numbers of patients able or willing to access them. Men’s attendance at, and engagement with, self-management support appears suboptima...

Antenatal mental health assessment is increasingly common in high-income countries. Despite lacking evidence on validation or acceptability, the Whooley questions (modified PHQ-2) and Arroll ‘help’ question are used in the UK at booking (the first formal antenatal appointment) to identify possible cases of depression. This study investigated valida...

Self-management support interventions can improve health outcomes, but their impact is limited by the numbers of people able or willing to access them. Men's attendance at existing self-management support services appears suboptimal despite their increased risk of developing many of the most serious long term conditions. The aim of this review was...

to investigate (i) the consistency and completeness of mental health assessment documented at hospital booking; (ii) the subsequent management of pregnant women identified as experiencing, or at risk of, mental health problems; and (iii) women׳s experiences of the mental health referral process.Designmixed methods cohort studySettinglarge, inner-ci...

This consensus statement is the result of an invited workshop funded by the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology on Measuring Psychological Health in the Perinatal Period which was held in Oxford on 19 March 2013.1 The workshop evolved out of recognition that a major limitation to research and practice in the perinatal period is identifyi...

Objective: To consider how psychosocial assessment in the perinatal period may act as an intervention. Background: Psychosocial assessment has been introduced into routine antenatal care in several countries but there has been no consideration of ‘measurement reactivity’, the effects of such processes on those being measured. Methods: Psychosocial...

Discursive perspectives argue that cervical screening carries social and moral meaning. Overlooked by research into the health needs of sexual minority women, previous literature that has examined uptake of cervical screening has instead targeted increasing attendance via information and service provision. In order to explore the diversity of meani...

Interventions for drug-using offenders are employed internationally to reduce subsequent drug use and criminal behavior. This paper provides information from a systematic review of 24 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted between 1980 and 2004. Thirteen of the 24 trials were included in a series of meta-analyses, and tentative conclusions a...

A number of policy directives are aimed at enabling people with drug problems to live healthy, crime free lives. Drug-using offenders naturally represent a socially excluded group who may experience problems in relation to their drug use. A number of studies and previous systematic reviews have considered the effectiveness of drug treatment interve...