InterPregnancy Interval Planning after caesarean section. The PIP study

The purpose of this research is to explore women’s experience and decision making around planning and timing of their next pregnancy after caesarean section across Australia. We aim to discover factors influencing decision, understand the decision making experience and determine what information women seek and value for planning a next pregnancy after caesarean section. The findings will help to inform maternity care providers about when and how women would like to receive relevant information to inform pregnancy planning decisions after caesarean section. An initial invitation to participate in semi-structured interviews was circulated via social media. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twelve women across Australia in 2021 to inform development of a survey through the themes identified from these interviews. The developed survey was then piloted with interview participants. The comments and feedback received from the pilot were considered, the survey refined then distributed across Australia via social media platforms in December 2021 and January 2022. Over 300 responses have been received and are currently undergoing analysis using SPSS and NVivo. The findings of the survey will help inform maternity care providers of approaches to health literacy and informed decision making around interpregnancy interval and reproductive life planning after caesarean section.