Experiences related to health promotion behaviors in overweight pregnant women: a qualitative study

Abstract Background The adoption of health behaviors by pregnant women causes their improved health and achievement of appropriate pregnancy outcomes as well as improving the quality of life of the mother and infant. Limited studies have examined such behaviors in pregnant women, especially in overweight mothers. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of overweight pregnant women in relation to lifestyle changes during pregnancy to improve their health. Methods This qualitative study was carried out with content analysis approach in Tabriz-Iran in 2017. Using purposive sampling, pregnant women with the Body Mass Index of overweight at the preconception were selected considering other inclusion criteria and the sampling was continued to saturate the findings. The data were collected by the first author through semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 32 overweight pregnant women through 18 deep individual interviews and three group interviews. The MAXQDA software version 10 was used for data analysis. Data strength was confirmed by participants and external control. Results Most participants were Primigravida 20 (62.5%) and with high-level education 25 (78.1%). Qualitative data analysis led to the emergence of three main themes: “physical self-care”, “mental self-care”, and “risk perception”. The first two themes present the nature of health promotion behaviors in overweight pregnant women; the third theme expresses their feelings and perception of behaviors related to health promotion. Conclusion Health promoting behaviors include behavioral and cognitive actions resulting from a perception of the risk caused by overweight pregnant mothers. Therefore, pregnancy is the right time to evaluate behaviors and to use high motivation of women to guide them in choosing healthy behaviors and helping them to adhere to health related behaviors