“Today it matters where in Sweden you give birth. Women receive different care depending on location when it comes to how much intervention such as surgery, labour-inducing drip and the like is the norm where they are. This is unacceptable,” says Marie Blomberg, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at LiU, and senior physician at the women’s clinic at Linköping University Hospital.
AndreyPopov
“The woman does not think about her care based on how the healthcare system is organised, where antenatal care is one part and childbirth care is another; she often sees it as an unbroken chain. In this research, we intend to follow the woman’s path just as she experiences it,” says Marie Blomberg.
Praised but unequal care
Swedish antenatal health and childbirth care has been praised for good results. However, there are many inequalities and variations as regards access to evidence-based care depending on region and the woman’s socio-economic status and country of origin. Antenatal care is based on a standard programme where all pregnant women are called to the same number of appointments. Aftercare is structured in the same way. This may seem fair, but is problematic in reality, according to Marie Blomberg.
“This praxis has been the same for a very long time, but the population has changed a lot in the meantime. Some may need a lot of medical care, while others may not. Healthcare has a limited pot of money, and we believe that resources can be used much better. To change this, different antenatal care programmes focusing on the individual woman’s needs must be tested,” says Marie Blomberg. “They need to be tested to make sure that we provide safe care and that the women are happy with them, and the best programmes will then be used.”
Health risks later in life
There have also been medical advances. Today, it is clear that certain complications during pregnancy, such as pre-eclampsia and diabetes, increase women’s risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. However, post-natal care does not capture this.
“There’s so much more the health care system could for this group of women, in terms of prevention.”
The MAMA research centre will address these extensive challenges to make change possible. The research is based on close collaboration between academia and healthcare, and brings together expertise from various fields, such as the care of pregnant women and unborn children, and childbirth care (obstetrics), public health, heart diseases (cardiology), nutrition and social sciences. The researchers involved come from Linköping University, Region Östergötland and Karolinska Institutet.
Change is the goal
The long-term support from Forte provides much better conditions than shorter initiatives, according to Marie Blomberg, as resources in the form of healthcare professionals can be freed, and these are given the opportunity to combine their work with research.
Magnus Johansson
“We’ve gathered a team that is absolutely fantastic and everyone contributes different skills. It’s really exciting that we will tackle questions that are difficult to answer, but this is absolutely necessary to achieve change. With this team, I think we can do it and then we’ll make a big difference.”
