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Background: Professional support in childbearing has beneficial effects on childbirth experience, interactions within the family, breastfeeding and medical outcomes. However, more knowledge is needed about prerequisites for professional support to be valuable and satisfactory during childbearing. Aim: The aim of this discourse paper is to describe and explore prerequisites for professional support that are of value for women and their families during childbearing as well as how healthcare organizations can be formed to facilitate these prerequisites. Design: Discourse paper. Methods: This discourse paper is based on our own experiences and is supported by literature and theory. Results: Well-functioning structures and processes facilitate professional support that leads to safe, secure, calm and prepared parents with the ability to handle the challenges of childbearing and parenting. When organizing care in childbearing, prerequisites for support needs must also be considered. CC BY 4.0© 2021 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.First published: 06 November 2021CorrespondenceAnette Ekström-Bergström, Department of Health Sciences, University West, SE-461 86 Trollhättan, Sweden.Email: anette.ekstrom-bergstrom@hv.se

Social contextual circumstances have an influence on parental transition, and social support has been shown to facilitate the transition to parenthood, among other states. Further knowledge is, however, needed to explore how partners of pregnant women use their social networks during pregnancy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore how partners of pregnant women use their social networks when preparing for childbirth and parenting. Within this study, a social network is defined as social connections such as family, friends and significant others. In total, 14 partners (expectant fathers and co-mothers) were interviewed. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. EQUATOR Network guidelines and the COREQ checklist were applied. The analysis resulted in one theme of meaning: Partners use their social networks to receive social support, which facilitates understanding about how to prepare for childbirth and parenthood, which was described through three sub-themes. The results highlight the importance of social networks for partners when preparing for childbirth and parenthood. Professionals should aim to strengthen and extend partners’ social networks and access to social support. This could be done not only to support partners to attend parental classes, but also to participate socially as well as engage with other expectant parents within the classes. CC BY 4.0Corresponding author:Caroline B€ackstrom, School of Health Sciences, University of Skövde, Post Box 408, S 541 28, Sweden. Email: caroline.backstrom@his.se

Nowadays, in Sweden, fathers are expected to be active in their father role and to share caring responsibilities for their children equally with mothers. This active role of a father in a family can be challenging, especially for the first-time fathers. Child health nurses' support is an important factor for fathers to become confident caregivers. The Father Perceived Professional Support scale (FaPPS scale) can be used in nursing practice for better understanding father's needs of professional support. The aim of this study was to describe first-time fathers' experiences of the professional support received from child health nurses and to validate the instrument: 'FaPPS scale'. A qualitative design, with inductive and deductive approaches, was used in this study. Twelve first-time fathers participated in the semi-structured interviews, thereafter grading the FaPPS scale items and commenting on them. The fathers experienced nurses' support positively when nurses provided practical information and stimulated them to be involved in care of their children. In contrast, the support was experienced negatively because of nurses' lack of commitment, availability and adaptation to the fathers' individual needs. The fathers also felt inequality between the support received by fathers and by mothers. Although some fathers perceived it as negative, others considered it fair, believing that mothers needed more support. In addition, fathers expect nurses to actively offer support to them and supervise them in childcare. The fathers also needed meeting other parents, for example in parental groups. This study also indicates that FaPPS scale can be used both in research and clinical practice, though still needing further development.

Background In today's society, people are experiencing the rapid development of digitalisation. Expecting parents may have difficulties evaluating the information online; they are not always sure which sources of information are trustworthy, and this exacerbates their feelings of anxiety. More research is needed to broaden the knowledge about how their use of digital sources may influence their health. Question The focus of this study was to explore expecting parents’ use of digital sources and how this influences their health during pregnancy. Methods A systematic review covered the thematic analysis of 39 articles. Findings The analysis resulted in the following theme: The digitalised society involves both opportunities and challenges, and expecting parents express a need for a variety of digital sources to improve their health, and sub-themes: Digital sources could promote parents’ health and well-being in a digitalised society; Consuming digital health information facilitates understanding, different feelings and social connections; and A variety of digital sources may facilitate parental identification and adaption to parenthood. Conclusion Different digital sources in our digitalised society mean access to information and opportunities to extend social connections for expecting parents. This can promote their ability to understand and adapt to parenthood, as well as to improve their health and well-being and make the parental transition. However, professional support during face-to-face consultations cannot always be exchanged to digital sources. It is important to base digital sources devoted to expecting parents and digitalisation overall on multi-sectorial collaborations and coordination between different organisations and the digital sources they provide. CC BY 4.0First published online April 14, 2022caroline.backstrom@his.seFunding: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the School of Health Sciences, University of Skövde, Sweden.

Background: While becoming a parent can be challenging for all, it can particularly be challenging for those parents and children who are in a vulnerable situation—e.g., in families whose members have problems related to health, relationships, or socioeconomic status. It is essential for health care professionals to identify the more vulnerable families at an early stage. Home visits are one cost-effective way of identifying and supporting such families. This study describes the parental experiences of an intervention that involves professional support in the form of extended home visits. The aim of the study is to describe the parents' understanding of their experiences of receiving professional support through extended home visits both during pregnancy and the first 15 months of their child's life. Methods/Design: A phenomenographic approach was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 parents who had received the intervention. The interviews were analyzed using the seven-step phenomenography model described by Sjöström and Dahlgren. Results: The following three descriptive categories emerged from the analysis: (1) conceptions concerning the meaning of the physical environment, (2) conceptions concerning extended home visits promoting feelings of self-confidence in the parental role, and (3) conceptions concerning extended home visits promoting parental participation and relations. Conclusion and Clinical Implications: Extended home visits as a form of professional support appear to promote parental self-confidence in parenting ability, giving parents a feeling of security that facilitates conversation with professionals. Children and their entire families had natural roles during home visits, which allowed the children to behave more characteristically. Furthermore, the home visits were understood to facilitate social support through social activities at the child health center as well as integration into Swedish society for migrant parents. Professional support should be adjusted to the unique individual needs of parents, which demands a variety of supportive interventions—for example, reorganizing one or two of the regular clinical visits currently being scheduled as home visits instead. CC BY 4.0© Copyright © 2021 Bäckström, Thorstensson, Pihlblad, Forsman and Larsson.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY)Correspondence: Caroline Bäckström caroline.backstrom@his.se

Aims and objectives: To describe the experiences of school nurses working with overweight schoolchildren. Background: School nurses play an important role in health promotion of overweight children. Lifestyle changes and interventions to address being overweight can improve health outcomes and decrease the risk for future health problems. Design: A descriptive and qualitative design with a phenomenological approach was used. Data were gathered through interviews with school nurses working with overweight schoolchildren in Swedish elementary school; the data were subsequently analysed for meanings. Results:Working with overweight children was perceived as demanding and challenging by the school nurses who found conversations on this topic emotionally loaded and complex. In addition, the school nurses needed to be sensitive and supportive to succeed in their support for a healthier everyday life for the schoolchildren. It was stated as important to find ways to break the child ’s weight gain and to cooperate with the parents in this work. The children ’s decrease in weight was experienced to be more successful when making small, step-by-step changes together with the child and his or her parents. Conclusions: This study concludes that health talks about being overweight may be a challenge for school nurses. Strategies used to manage and succeed in this work included engaging in motivational conversations, working step by step and cooperating with the child’s parents. Furthermore, the nurses experienced that they needed to provide emotional support for overweight children during school time. Relevance to clinical practice: The school nurses’ health promotion needs to focus on how to break weight gain in overweight children. In this work, the nurses’ sensitiveness seems pivotal. Further research is needed on school nurses’ work with health promotion and support of overweight children concerning how to perform efficient communication and cooperation with the children and their parents. CC BY 4.0

Objectives: Gay and lesbian youth can experience ignorance and a lack of acknowledgement surrounding their sexual orientation during their time in school. This qualitative interview study describes how Swedish gay and lesbian students experience their secondary school years on the basis that society has heteronormative values. Methods: The data is based on eight telephone interviews with gay and lesbian young adults, aged 18–25 and was analysed using a qualitative narrative approach. Findings: The findings presented four themes: not fitting into the norm of heterosexuality, lacking confirmation of their own homosexuality, finding courage, seeing the school as a supportive or a non-supportive environment. Conclusions: A way to normalise homosexuality can be to discuss sexual development and attraction from a health-promoting perspective. Professionals working in school need to feel comfortable with issues such as sexuality in order to create a situation of confidence for the student.

Pregnant women are not always satisfied with the professional support they receive during their midwifery care. More knowledge is needed to understand what professional support pregnant women need for childbirth and parenting.Childbearing and the transition to becoming a parent is a sensitive period in one's life during which one should have the opportunity to receive professional support. Professional support does not always correspond to pregnant women's needs. To understand pregnant women's needs for professional support within midwifery care, it is crucial to further illuminate women's experiences of this support.To explore pregnant women's perceptions of professional support in midwifery care.A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Fifteen women were interviewed during gestational weeks 36-38. Data was analysed using phenomenography.The women perceived professional support in midwifery care to be reassuring and emotional, to consist of reliable information, and to be mediated with pedagogical creativity. The professional support facilitated new social contacts, partner involvement and contributed to mental preparedness. The findings of the study were presented in six categories and the category Professional support contributes to mental preparedness was influenced by the five other categories.Pregnant women prepare for childbirth and parenting by using several different types of professional support in midwifery care: a strategy that could be described as piecing together a puzzle. When the women put the puzzle together, each type of professional support works as a valuable piece in the whole puzzle. Through this, professional support could contribute to women's mental preparedness for childbirth and parenting.

Students with type 1 diabetes (T1D) need to take responsibility for their T1D and need professional support from school nurses. This study describes school nurses’ experiences in supporting students with T1D in school. A qualitative approach was used. After purposive sampling, six school nurses were interviewed and data were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. For professional support, a network around the student was enabled constituting of a continuous dialogue and responsibility and preparedness. For professional support a mutual commitment from the student, parents, and the school nurse was needed which was built from initiating participation and security, the school nurse’s ability to be present and available and on school nurse’s perceived competence. The conclusion of the study, and its practical implication, is that school nurses’ ability for professional support of students with T1D varied in relation to their perceived competence in nursing science as well as their ability to enable, strengthen and sustain teamwork and family–school team meetings.

Background: The physical environment has an impact on wellbeing. School nurses can use this to promote students' health. Aim: The aim of this study is to elucidate school nurses' perceptions of using the physical environment at their office, as a tool in nursing. Method: A qualitative interview study was conducted with five Swedish school nurses, using semi-structured questions. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Three categories (offering a health environment for wellbeing, being present in the environment for the children and using the environment for health education) and six subcategories emerged during analysis. Conclusions: School nurses made their office a place for wellbeing by using it for health information, as a sanctuary and as an environment that supports children's need for integrity. How the school nurses used their environment depended on their personality. Obstacles included people in the school who had little knowledge of what school nurses' work consists of and also the difficulty of appearing available to the children.

We studied the experience of professional support among first-time mothers in relation to a scale measuring professional support in maternity care. We used a qualitative study with both an inductive and deductive approach and interviewed nine mothers. Our findings, both inductive and deductive, suggest that first-time mothers expect professional support in their transition into motherhood, building a bridge between two worlds. The first meeting, acknowledging individual needs, and supporting partner participation were important for good support. Maternity care should be organized with a focus on availability and professional support for mothers and the increased participation of their partners. Our scale of measurement can be useful but needs some development.

Mental ill-health is an increasing problem in Swedish society. If a parent is suffering from mental illness, it can have negative consequences for the child's wellbeing, health and developmental process. The challenge for school nurses is to identify and support these students. The aim of this study is to describe school nurses' experiences from meeting and supporting students who have parents with mental ill-health. Interviews with six school nurses were performed after snowball recruitment with purposive sampling and analysed using qualitative content analysis. School nurses' experience of meeting and supporting students who have parents with mental ill-health shows that this is complex and demands competence and collaboration. Their competences in collaboration with others as well as their ability to show an open and tolerant attitude were important in order to build trustful relations with students, their parents and other professionals.

‘It makes you feel like you are not alone’ : Expectant first-time mothers’ experiences of social support within the social network, when preparing for childbirth and parenting

Support in labour has an impact on the childbirth experience as well as on childbirth outcomes. Both social and professional support is needed. The aim of this study was to explore professional support offered by midwives during labour in relation to the supportive needs of the childbearing woman and her partner. The study used a qualitative, inductive design using triangulation, with observation followed by interviews. Seven midwives were observed when caring for seven women/couples in labour. After the observations, individual interviews with midwives, women, and their partners were conducted. Data were analysed using hermeneutical text interpretation. The results are presented with three themes. (1)Support as a professional task seems unclear and less well defined than medical controls. (2)Midwives and parents express somewhat different supportive ideas about how to create a sense of security. (3)Partner and midwife interact in support of the childbearing woman. The main interpretation shows that midwives' supportive role during labour could be understood as them mainly adopting the “with institution” ideology in contrast to the “with woman” ideology. This may increase the risk of childbearing women and their partners perceiving lack of support during labour. There is a need to increase efficiency by providing support for professionals to adopt the “with woman” ideology.

to explore and describe the student midwife's experiences in offering continuous labour support.a qualitative research design was chosen. Each student midwife offered continuous labour support to five women/couples and wrote narratives about each of these occasions. Written narratives from 11 student midwives were analysed using qualitative content analysis.when student midwives offer continuous labour support to women/couples, they try to establish rapport. When this works, their presence, their sense of confidence and their ability to offer reassurance increase. If establishing rapport does not work, students experience a sense of powerlessness, a need for reassurance and a lack of confidence.offering continuous labour support to women and/or their partners made the students aware of the importance of establishing rapport, and it made them realise the impact that their mere presence in the room could have. The students had a need for reassurance which could hamper their efforts to establish rapport. Experiencing a lack of confidence made students focus more strongly on their clinical skills and on their perceived role as a student midwife.this study can initiate discussions about how student midwives learn to be supportive, as well as about the role models that students encounter during their clinical training in Sweden.

Background: Becoming parents for the first time is challenging. Mothers need both social and professional support to handle these challenges. Professionals’ attitudes affect quality of care and support. So to improve professional support, an intervention consisting of a process-oriented training was performed. Due to the positive results of the intervention there is a need to illuminate the methodological approach further. The overall aim was therefore to describe a methodological approach to improve and evaluate health care professionals’ attitudes toward breastfeeding and parental support in order to improve quality of care in childbearing. Methods: This study was a longitudinal randomized control intervention study, in which groups of mothers received care in childbearing from midwives and child health nurses. These health professionals had gone through a process-oriented training, or not. In order to improve attitudes of health professionals the training was based on evidence, practical skills and reflective processes (both private and professional experiences) in relation to breastfeeding and parental support. Included in the longitudinal study were health professionals from five intervention municipalities n = 36 and health professionals from five control municipalities n = 45. All mothers who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were consecutively identified from the hospital register and asked to participate in the study. Mothers who accepted to participate were included in the interventions group (n = 206) or control groups (n = 162, n = 172 respectively) based on which municipality they belonged to. Results: The results of the process-oriented training improved the professionals’ attitudes toward breastfeeding and parental support. These improved attitudes in health professionals increased intervention-group mother’s satisfaction with professional and social support. Intervention-group mother’s relation to and feelings for their baby as well as breastfeeding was also improved. Conclusion: These results stress the importance of professionals’ attitude in quality of care during childbearing, as well as pointing to the possibility to improve professionals’ attitudes with a process-oriented training. Trial registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR), trial registration:ACTRN12611000354987.

Background: Pregnancy can be physically and emotionally stressful for the parents, which means they need adequate professional support. Easy-to-use, validated scales are important in order to develop professional support in Antenatal care as well as in research. The aim: Our aim was to illuminate pregnant women’s experience of professional support at the Antenatal care, in relation to the Mother-Perceived-Professionals-Support (MoPPS) scale. Method: A qualitative study design using the method “Think aloud” with both inductive and deductive approaches, was used. Five first-time mothers were interviewed with open questions followed by questions related to the MoPPS scale items. Data was analyzed using inductive and deductive qualitative content analyses. Results: The inductive analysis resulted in one theme: “Professional support from midwives made women created a feeling of security and unique or rejected and lonely during pregnancy” and three categories: “Continuity and competence”, “Perceiving trust or not” and “Parental groups or individual visits”. The deductive analysis described the mothers’ understanding of each item. However, coherence between the inductive and deductive analyses varied and the MoPPS-scale needs development. Conclusion: The result shows that women's experience of professional support affects their sense of feeling safe or lonely during pregnancy. Important for midwives were to meet the women’s unique individual needs. The MoPPS scale was considered to be relevant and easy to understand, but it needs development to include questions about continuity, parental groups and the perception of midwives’ competence, which all were important for the women during their pregnancies. Clinical implications: To offer adequate professional support for women during pregnancy, midwives need to meet the women’s unique individual needs with both medical and supportive knowledge.

Received date: Feb 09, 2015, Accepted date: Mar 11, 2015, Published date: Mar 18, 2015Copyright: © 2015 Ekstrom A et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricteduse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Support is described as an interactive process that affects wellbeing and health of the individual and it consist of emotional, appraisal, informative and practical acts [1]. Support is linked to social roles and the attachment process [2] which will affect the individual ability both to interact with other people but also to trust other people [3]. Both the capability to provide (i.e. provider) and the capability to receive (i.e. recipient) support are affected by the persons’ age, experience and the social environment [1,2]. However, the concept of support in relation to the concept of care needs further exploration [4]. There could be a difference between the verb to “act supportive” and to “care for” as these verbs are etymologically different [5,6]. To act supportive could etymologically be understood as the provider having “trust in the capacity” of the recipient expecting that the recipient will “take charge”. While to “care for” could etymologically be understood as the provider expecting to “be responsible for” and the recipient to be “taken care of” [5,6]. This would mean that offering support require that the provider is “more passive” while the recipient is “more active” This is in contrast with to care for which will require that the provider is “responsible for” that is, the provider is more active and the recipient more passive.

Background: Fathers feel excluded and insecure during childbirth and professional support for fathers can be inadequate. Therefore it is important to further understand fathers experience in order to develop professional support and to create a positive childbirth experience for both fathers and their partners. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore fathers’ feelings and experiences during pregnancy and childbirth. Materials and Methods: A qualitative method was used, with written interviews which were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. Participants were eight fathers who wrote answers to two open questions. Results: The theme “Fathers have strong, mixed feeling while striving to become prepared and to participate during pregnancy and childbirth” crossed over into all the four categories: Being prepared gave security, Feeling needed, Feeling strong, mixed feelings during pregnancy, and Feeling strong, mixed feelings during childbirth. Fathers’ previous experiences from childbirth facilitated being prepared and increased sense of security. Conclusion: It was important for fathers to be prepared and to feel needed and to witness the birth of their baby was fantastic. Overall, the fathers were faced with handling their strong but mixed feelings while striving to prepare for and participate in pregnancy and childbirth. Implications: Healthcare professionals need to acknowledge that fathers have needs of their own during pregnancy and childbirth. Fathers also worry about the woman and the baby so they need explanations about normal changes as well as possible complications.

Background: Cesarean birth may negatively affect mother-infant interactions, while professional support may positively affect these interactions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a process-oriented training program for antenatal midwives and postnatal nurses on first time mothers’ perceptions of professional support and on their relation to and feelings for their baby after a cesarean or a normal birth. Methods: An intervention through process-oriented training for health professionals regarding professional support in childbearing was conducted between 1999 and 2003. Ten municipalities were paired and within each pair, randomly assigned to intervention (five) or control (five) municipality. Mothers having caesarean (n=94) or normal birth (n=301) were included. Mothers received routine care (Control Group=CG) or care from health professionals having received training (Intervention Group=IG). The mothers answered questionnaires three days, three and nine months after birth. Factor analysis identified three factors: “Taking in baby,” “Confidence in relation to baby,” and “Feelings for baby.” Results: Mothers in the IG with cesarean birth reported more positive for the “Taking in baby” factor (p=0.002) three days after birth, more positive for the “Confidence in relation to baby” factor (p=0.004) and for the “Feelings for baby” factor (p=0.004) nine months after birth compared to Mothers in the CG. Mothers in the IG reported stronger professional support from health professionals compared to CG. Conclusion: Our result suggests that improved professional support during pregnancy may buffer negative effects of caesarean birth for first-time mothers in relation to and feelings for the baby.