Motivational interviewing to promote interconception health: A scoping review of evidence from clinical trials

Moms in the NICU: developing a pilot to engage and empower women who have delivered a prematurely born infant

“…An important aspect of the intervention was to educate the medical expert with respect to the importance and need for empathetic active listening and storytelling [ 18 ], to encourage mothers to acknowledge their feelings about their experience, which often included grief, anger and guilt. Studies indicate that empathetic listening not only provides comfort but also leads to better therapeutic results and has been used to promote postpartum care and interconception health [ 14 , 15 ]. This open-ended approach provided an opportunity to decrease the negative impact of their preterm birth as well as to co-design a plan to improve their health.…”

“…In developing the intervention, the NICU family advisory representatives played an important role in creating an overall approach and communication style designed to minimize feelings of guilt for having given birth to a premature infant. To better understand the significance of tailored interventions for mothers’ needs, a literature review on the perinatal use of motivational interviewing [ 15 ] as well as current interventions for prolonging the interpregnancy interval and the availability of alternative contraceptive medicine was conducted. Furthermore, existing health education materials were assessed for use and adapted for inclusion in this intervention.…”

“…The purpose of the “Moms in the NICU” initiative was to develop and pilot an approach to motivating mothers to improve their overall health by providing mothers with a clear understanding of the circumstances of her preterm pregnancy, recommendations for future pregnancies, and recommendations for improving her own health, while caring for her preterm infant in the NICU. The first step challenge of a “Moms in the NICU” intervention was to develop a NICU based motivational interviewing approach [ 14 , 15 ] utilizing the principles of empathetic listening and patient determined goal setting to both inform mothers of ways in which they could reduce the likelihood of a repeat preterm birth and improve their own health and to guide them in their selection of action steps, that were felt to be acceptable and potentially useful by both the clinical team and the participating mothers. This report will describe the development and initial piloting of the “Moms in the NICU” intervention.…”