Feasibility of a routine postnatal weight management intervention
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Feasibility and acceptability of a brief routine weight management intervention for postnatal women embedded within the national child immunisation programme
IRAS ID
186569
Contact name
Janice Ferguson
Contact email
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN10460064
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Postnatal weight retention increases the risk of later obesity and chronic diseases, indicating a need for interventions to help women manage their weight after childbirth. Most trials have recruited small samples and/or evaluated intensive weight loss interventions, which cannot be offered to all women who give birth. We propose to embed a simple intervention into the national child immunisation programme so if effective it can be rolled out quickly to every woman giving birth at little extra cost. We will assess the feasibility of an intervention focused on promoting self-monitoring of postnatal weight and signposting to a public health funded online weight management programme by practice nurses as part of the child immunisation programme. 80 women will be recruited from 8 practices to test recruitment, intervention timing/acceptability and trial procedures. Women who have given birth in the last 4 weeks will be identified from the child health information system and mailed a study invitation. Women must be aged 18 years or older, with a BMI ≥25kg/m2. The intervention is embedded within pre-existing contacts at the baby’s immunisations at 2, 3 and 4 months. When women attend their practice to have their child immunised they will be encouraged to self-monitor their weight and signposted to an online weight management programme. Women will be advised to aim for 0.5-1kg weight loss per week, asked to weigh themselves weekly and record this on a record card. To increase accountability, at each immunisation the practice nurse will weigh women to assess progress. Nurses will not provide lifestyle counselling, but simply provide accountability and signpost women to the online weight management programme.
The usual care group will receive a healthy lifestyle leaflet. Follow-up is three months post-randomisation (baby is 5 months). Women and nurses will be interviewed to gain their views on the intervention.
REC name
West Midlands - Black Country Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/WM/0445
Date of REC Opinion
17 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion