Weight stigma is a commonly reported experience in maternity care that negatively impacts the health of mothers and their babies. Women who experience weight stigma commonly report symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress and poorer physical and behavioural health that can also impact their pregnancy outcomes.
Approximately 3.3 million Australian women are susceptible to weight stigma every year and women living in larger bodies may experience weight stigma at almost every healthcare visit.
To address this, Monash University researchers, together with women with lived experience and clinicians, have developed the first co-designed resources to address and reduce weight stigma in maternity care.
The study aimed to co-design weight stigma reduction resources in maternity care and evaluate clinician perspectives of the resources regarding their relevance to practice, strengths and areas for improvement.
The study, led by Dr Briony Hill, from Monash's School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and supported by a seeding grant from the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, was published in the journal, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth.
"We produced a set of evidence-based resources co-designed by consumers and clinicians. The resources included a video highlighting the lived experience voices of women who had experienced weight stigma in maternity care, images representing women with diverse body sizes for use in clinic waiting rooms, a short podcast to raise awareness of weight stigma in maternity care, and signposts for the antenatal clinic to prompt clinicians to consider weight stigma in everyday clinical interactions," Dr Hill said.
"Clinicians who saw the resources reported that they were valuable and relevant to practice and were important and helpful introductory materials to the issue of weight stigma."
According to Dr Hill, there is an appetite for midwives and obstetricians to improve their learning opportunities to reduce weight stigma in prenatal care and tackle weight stigma in practice.
"One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that midwives and women with lived experience of weight stigma came together collaboratively to come up with the resources that met both their needs," Dr Hill said.
"Future research should continue to refine the resources, evaluate their effectiveness at changing clinician behaviour, and implement them fully into health services.
"Doing so may reduce women's experiences of weight stigma, which should lead to better care and better pregnancy outcomes for larger bodied women."
Read the full paper: Co-design and clinician evaluation of resources to address weight stigma in antenatal care. DOI: 10.1186/s12884-025-07327-3
Some of the co-designed resources to address and reduce weight stigma in maternity care are available to access below:
- Co-produced video on the impact of weight stigma in maternity care featuring women's voices.
Please note: A case study is available upon request.
