Effectiveness of a 12-month randomized clinical trial to increase physical activity in multiethnic postpartum women: Results from Hawaii's Nā Mikimiki Project

Abstract

Objective Few postpartum ethnic minority women perform leisure-time moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The study tested the effectiveness of a 12-month tailored intervention to increase MVPA in women with infants 2–12 months old. Methods From 2008–2011, women (n=311) with infants (average age = 5.7 months) from Honolulu, Hawaii were randomly assigned to receive tailored telephone calls and access to a mom-centric website (n=154) or access to a standard PA website (n=157). MVPA was measured at baseline, 6, and 12 months using self-report and acclerometers. Results Controlling for covariates, the tailored condition significantly increased self-reported MVPA from an average of 44 to 246 minutes/week compared with 46 to 156 minutes/week for the standard condition (p=0.027). Mothers with ≥ 2 children had significantly greater increases in MVPA in response to the tailored intervention than those with one child (p=0.016). Accelerometer-measured MVPA significantly increased over time (p=0.0001), with no condition differences. There was evidence of reactivity to initially wearing accelerometers; the tailored intervention significantly increased MVPA among women with low baseline accelerometer MVPA minutes, but not among those with high minutes (pinteraction=0.053). Conclusion A tailored intervention effectively increased MVPA over 12 months in multiethnic women with infants, particularly those with more than one child.

Increasing Physical Activity in Mothers Using Video Exercise Groups and Exercise Mobile Apps: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

“…Two comparable randomized technology trials of physical activity with mothers that incorporated technology found statistically significant increases in MVPA minutes in the range of the increases we found in inactive women [48,51]. One trial found an increase of 92 MVPA minutes per week for mothers of babies 3+ months comparable to our difference of 51 MVPA minutes per week using the vigorous enhanced equation; and a second trial found an increase of 49 MVPA minutes per week comparable to our difference of 33 MVPA minutes per week using the simple equation.…”

“…Many physical activity trials for mothers require fairly high time commitments from participants, primarily through coaching and education in person [14,[45][46][47], remotely via telephone and texts [48,49], or both [50][51][52]. Participants' time in this study went almost entirely towards exercising.…”

“…Participants reported a strong appreciation for the convenience and flexibility of the intervention which are particularly important features for mothers of young children who report feeling overwhelmed and unable to prioritize their own self-care [15,[17][18][19]53]. Accordingly, our retention rates of 95% were higher than the two comparable technology trials on physical activity with mothers (86% and 75%), and among the highest of physical activity trials with mothers [14,[45][46][47][48][49]51,52]. The high feasibility and acceptability of this trial has implications for future internet physical activity trials targeting mothers.…”

“…Some trials have found statistically significant increases in physical activity [45,48,50,51], while others report nonstatistically significant changes [14,52]. There is great heterogeneity in the types of interventions delivered, and even inconsistency in the definition of MVPA.…”

Mobile Health Solutions for Hypertensive Disorders in Pregnancy: Scoping Literature Review (Preprint)

“…Full-text publications were obtained of the resulting 20 articles. 9 of them were excluded due to the following reasons: different population group (pregnant women without hypertensive disorders or postpartum women) [76][77][78]; other disorders (gestational diabetes mellitus) [79], [80]; the same m-Health solution [81][82][83][84]. Finally, data extraction was performed on the final 11 included articles.…”