Reducing the Decline in Physical Activity during Pregnancy: A Systematic Review of Behaviour Change Interventions

Purpose

Physical activity (PA) typically declines throughout pregnancy. Low levels of PA are associated with excessive weight gain and subsequently increase risk of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, hypertension disorders, delivery by caesarean section and stillbirth. Systematic reviews on PA during pregnancy have not explored the efficacy of behaviour change techniques or related theory in altering PA behaviour. This systematic review evaluated the content of PA interventions to reduce the decline of PA in pregnant women with a specific emphasis on the behaviour change techniques employed to elicit this change.

Search and Review Methodology

Literature searches were conducted in eight databases. Strict inclusion and exclusion criteria were employed. Two reviewers independently evaluated each intervention using the behaviour change techniques (BCT) taxonomy to identify the specific behaviour change techniques employed. Two reviewers independently assessed the risk of bias using the guidelines from the Cochrane Collaboration. Overall quality was determined using the GRADE approach.

Findings

A total of 1140 potentially eligible papers were identified from which 14 studies were selected for inclusion. Interventions included counselling (n = 6), structured exercise (n = 6) and education (n = 2). Common behaviour change techniques employed in these studies were goal setting and planning, feedback, repetition and substitution, shaping knowledge and comparison of behaviours. Regular face-to-face meetings were also commonly employed. PA change over time in intervention groups ranged from increases of 28% to decreases of 25%. In 8 out of 10 studies, which provided adequate data, participants in the intervention group were more physically active post intervention than controls.

Conclusions and Implications

Physical activity interventions incorporating behaviour change techniques help reduce the decline in PA throughout pregnancy. Range of behaviour change techniques can be implemented to reduce this decline including goals and planning, shaping knowledge and comparison of outcomes. A lack of high quality interventions hampers conclusions of intervention effectiveness.     

Mapping global cropland and field size

A new 1 km global IIASA‐IFPRI cropland percentage map for the baseline year 2005 has been developed which integrates a number of individual cropland maps at global to regional to national scales. The individual map products include existing global land cover maps such as GlobCover 2005 and MODIS v.5, regional maps such as AFRICOVER and national maps from mapping agencies and other organizations. The different products are ranked at the national level using crowdsourced data from Geo‐Wiki to create a map that reflects the likelihood of cropland. Calibration with national and subnational crop statistics was then undertaken to distribute the cropland within each country and subnational unit. The new IIASA‐IFPRI cropland product has been validated using very high‐resolution satellite imagery via Geo‐Wiki and has an overall accuracy of 82.4%. It has also been compared with the EarthStat cropland product and shows a lower root mean square error on an independent data set collected from Geo‐Wiki. The first ever global field size map was produced at the same resolution as the IIASA‐IFPRI cropland map based on interpolation of field size data collected via a Geo‐Wiki crowdsourcing campaign. A validation exercise of the global field size map revealed satisfactory agreement with control data, particularly given the relatively modest size of the field size data set used to create the map. Both are critical inputs to global agricultural monitoring in the frame of GEOGLAM and will serve the global land modelling and integrated assessment community, in particular for improving land use models that require baseline cropland information. These products are freely available for downloading from the http://cropland.geo-wiki.org website.     

Validation of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) with Arabic cancer patients

Sleep and Biological Rhythms - The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a self-administrated questionnaire, is a frequently used instrument to assess sleep quality in clinical and non-clinical...     

Trophic relationships of common frog (Rana temporaria) and pigmy shrew (Sorex minutus) in upland Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland

The common frog and the pigmy shrew are common vertebrate predators in the uplands of Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. This report concerns their habitat preference and trophic biology which are poorly documented at higher altitudes. Frogs preferred damp, grassy, reclaimed habitats while pigmy shrews appeared to favour moorland dominated by Calluna vulgaris. Both frogs and shrews were absent from pitfall trap collections from December to February and numbers of both were low until late spring. This corresponded to the period of lowest invertebrate abundance. Examination of stomach contents suggests that frogs are less selective feeders and utilize a greater diversity of prey items than pigmy shrews. Although sample size is low early in the year, diversity of the diet of pigmy shrews apparently increased from the first to the second quarter and again in the third quarter of the year. This led to an increase in food niche overlap with frogs in late summer but at a time of year when food supply was greatest. It is unlikely, therefore, that dietary overlap constitutes a basis for interspecific competition between frogs and shrews. This is likely to be ameliorated by habitat and behavioural differences between the two predators.