Broaching overweight and obesity at maternity and child health clinics.

Aims: The aim was to describe the experiences of nurses in broaching the issue of overweight and obesity at maternity and child health clinics. Background: The mother's obesity and excessive weight gain during pregnancy and rapid weight gain in early childhood increase the risk of obesity of the newborn baby both in childhood and throughout life. Attention must be paid to the prevention of weight gain in families already during pregnancy and before school age. Methods: Informants were nurses working at maternity and child health clinics (N = 28). The qualitative data were collected by a focus group interview in spring 2016 and analysed using inductive content analysis. Findings The nurses interviewed considered it their duty to broach the issue and felt that they have sufficient courage to bring up overweight. They sometimes found it frustrating to talk about overweight and obesity, because families do not commit themselves to making lifestyle changes, and changes happen slowly. Nurses found the lasting relationship with families helpful for bringing up overweight. Conclusion: Nurses need more broaching skills, more training, supervising and tools for bringing up overweight and obesity with client families. The continuity of care in primary health care supports bringing up overweight. Summary statement: What is already known about this topic? Overweight means the risk of obesity, and obesity is defined as excessive fat accumulation in the body.Early recognition of the risk factors for overweight and addressing them play a key role, because treating obesity and reaching lasting results is difficult.Nurses working at maternity and child health clinics play an important role in preventing overweight and obesity in pregnant families and families with children and in broaching the issue, because almost all families use maternity and child health clinics' services. Whatthis paper adds? Nurses consider broaching the issue of overweight and obesity as their duty and an integral part of their work.Nurses recognize the feelings of frustration and negative emotions sometimes associated with taking up the issue of overweight and obesity, but they have difficulties to support families in this kind of situations.Nurses found the lasting relationship with families helpful for bringing up overweight. The implications of this paper: When in practice both nurses and clients recognize bringing up overweight and obesity, nurses need more training and support how to motivate families for the necessary change, identify family‐specific ways and utilize the family's own resources in spite of their own frustration.More attention has to be paid in nursing education on how to bring up overweight or some other emotional issues with clients. Nurses need more broaching skills, more training, supervising and more tools for bringing up overweight and obesity.We need more scientific knowledge about how negative emotions steer the operation of nurses and how they affect the willingness of families to make lifestyle changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]