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Around half of pregnant women in the United Kingdom are overweight or obese. The antenatal period provides an opportunity for encouraging women to adopt positive lifestyle changes, and in recent years, this has included development of strategies to support women in avoiding excessive gestational weight gain. The objective of this interventional cohort study was to incorporate individualised gestational weight monitoring charts supported by motivational interviewing (MI)‐based conversations into midwifery‐led antenatal care and assess potential of the intervention for further development and evaluation. The study setting was a community midwifery team within a large maternity unit. The study explored the facilitators and barriers to engagement with the intervention as experienced by women and midwives; 52 women were recruited, of whom 48 were included in the analysis. A single training session was found adequate to prepare midwives to use antenatal weight charts but was insufficient to result in the incorporation of motivational interview techniques into clinical practice. We did not find sufficient evidence to recommend effectiveness testing of this intervention, and there is currently insufficient evidence to support reintroducing regular weighing of pregnant women into UK antenatal care. Given the public health importance of reducing rates of obesity, future interventions aimed at controlling gestational weight gain should continue to be developed but need to include innovative strategies particularly for women who are already obese or gain weight above that recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which aims to listen to peoples' perspectives on what constitutes a good physician communication. The researchers detail the study design using videotaped standardized medical encounters to discuss their preferences in gender-specific focus groups. It implies that the physicians' affective attitude is most desired and appreciated by patients.

Pregnancy provides motivation for women to improve their diets and increase their physical activity. Opportunistic brief interventions delivered as part of routine primary care have produced improvements in patients' health behaviour. Consequently, there have been calls for midwives to use contacts during pregnancy in this way. This study explored the experiences of pregnant women and research midwives/nurses of a brief intervention called Healthy Conversation Skills (HCS) being delivered as part of a randomised control trial, assessing the acceptability and feasibility of including this intervention in routine maternity care. Three research questions were addressed using mixed methods to produce four datasets: face‐to‐face interviews with participants, a focus group with the HCS‐trained midwives/nurses, case reports of participants receiving HCS and audio‐recordings of mid‐pregnancy telephone calls to the women which produced midwife/nurse HCS competency scores. Midwives/nurses used their HCS to support women to make plans for change and set goals. Women welcomed the opportunity to address their own health and well‐being as distinct from that of their baby. Midwives/nurses were competent in using the skills and saw healthy conversations as an effective means of raising issues of diet and physical activity. Recent extension of maternity appointment times provides ideal opportunities to incorporate a brief intervention to support behaviour change. Incorporating HCS training into midwifery education and continuing professional development would facilitate this. HCS is a scalable, brief intervention with the potential to improve the diets and physical activity levels of women during pregnancy, and hence the health of themselves and their babies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]