Barriers in the Uptake and Delivery of Preconception Care: Exploring the Views of Care Providers
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Objectives To examine health care professionals' views of their role and responsibilities in providing preconception care and identify barriers that affect the delivery and uptake of preconception care. Methods Twenty health care professionals who provide preconception care on a regular basis were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. Results We interviewed twelve community midwives, three General Practitioners, three obstetricians, one cardiologist specialized in congenital heart diseases and one gastroenterologist.We identified four barriers affecting the uptake and delivery of preconception care (PCC): (1) lack of a comprehensive preconception care program; (2) limited awareness of most future parents about the benefits of preconception care, hesitance of GP's about the necessity and effectiveness of PCC; (3) poor coordination and organization of preconception care; (4) conflicting views of health care professionals on pregnancy, reproductive autonomy of patients and professional responsibility. Conclusion We have identified four barriers in the uptake and delivery of preconception care. Our findings support the timely implementation of a comprehensive program of PCC (already advocated by the Health Council of the Netherlands) and increasing awareness and knowledge of PCC from care providers and future parents. We emphasize the need for further research on how organizational barriers lead to suboptimal PCC and how interdisciplinary collaboration and referral can lead to optimally tailored intervention approaches.
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Vulnerable women often have multiple unhealthy lifestyle behaviours and are specifically hard to reach.
“This is particularly the case for vulnerable women, who often have multiple unhealthy lifestyle behaviours and are specifically hard to reach [54].”
From Associations between periconceptional lifestyle behaviours and adverse pregnancy outcomes (2021) · cites this paper as [54]
In “Lack of a Comprehensive PCC Program” (page unavailable), providers identify future parents with low socioeconomic status or living in deprived neighborhoods as especially hard to reach. An obstetrician mentions people who smoke, drink, and are obese in deprived neighborhoods, but the paper does not establish that vulnerable women often have multiple unhealthy lifestyle behaviours. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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- Authors
- M’hamdi, H. I., van Voorst, S. F., Pinxten, W., Hilhorst, M. T., & Steegers, E. A. P.
- Affiliations
- Erasmus MC (NL)
- Hasselt University (BE)
- Corresponding author
- M’hamdi, Hafez Ismaili
- Venue
- Maternal and Child Health Journal
- Published
- 2016-07-16
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 21-28
- ISSN
- 1092-7875 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6628
- PMC
- PMC5226984
- OpenAlex
- W2468075248
- Cited by
- 106
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 12.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Maternal and Child Health Journal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePub (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Document Server@UHasselt (UHasselt) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Maternal and Neonatal Healthcare
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Prenatal Screening and Diagnostics
- Keywords
- preconception care, healthcare professionals' perspectives, community midwives, general practitioners, obstetricians, reproductive autonomy, professional responsibility, care coordination, interdisciplinary collaboration, referral
- MeSH terms
- Cardiologists, Workforce, Adult, Attitude of Health Personnel, Female, Health Personnel, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Netherlands, Nurse Midwives, Pregnancy, Primary Health Care, Preconception Care, Qualitative Research, General Practitioners
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