City St George’s launches new guides to support Pregnancy & Parenting Circles across the UK

Researchers at City St George’s, University of London have launched two new guides designed to support the implementation and delivery of Pregnancy & Parenting Circles across the UK.

The Pregnancy & Parenting Circles Implementation Guide and the Pregnancy & Parenting Circles Facilitators’ Guide bring together years of research and practical experience to provide a comprehensive resource for healthcare professionals, maternity services and organisations interested in delivering group care for expectant and new parents.

The guides have been developed by Octavia Wiseman, Research Fellow in the Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research (CMCHR) at City St George’s, and Dr Jalana Lazar, who completed her PhD at the University. They draw on findings from three major studies led or supported by researchers at City St George’s:

• The Research for Equitable Health and Care (REACH) Pregnancy Circles trial
• The Group Care in the First Thousand Days (GC_1000) implementation study
• The Evaluation of the Herts and West Essex pilot of Pregnancy and Parenting Circles

Together, the two volumes provide practical guidance on how to establish, deliver and sustain group care programmes in maternity and early years services. The team were also recently shortlisted for a Nursing Times' King's Award for Integrated Approaches to Care for the work on the implementation of Pregnancy & Parenting Circles in Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow.

Pregnancy & Parenting Circles bring together around 8–12 pregnant women/birthing people who are at similar stages in pregnancy and who live near each other to provide personalised, woman-centred, community-based maternity care. Pregnancy Circles (PC) focus on the antenatal period, with one postnatal reunion, while Pregnancy & Parenting Circles (PPC) extend this model to include three or more postnatal sessions, co-delivered by midwives and health visitors. Group care integrates three essential elements: clinical care, information-sharing and community-building.

The implementation guide provides practical advice for those seeking to introduce the model, covering areas such as planning, training, governance, safeguarding, stakeholder engagement and service redesign.

As part of this, it outlines a 10-step process for implementing group care in the NHS, and highlights a growing body of international evidence showing the benefits of group care, including research from City St George’s as well as a Cochrane Review.

Research has shown that group care is safe for mothers and babies and is associated with higher levels of satisfaction compared with traditional models of care. Studies have also reported reduced pre-term birth amongst Black and low-income women in some populations, improved attendance at antenatal appointments, increased breastfeeding rates and positive psychological outcomes among some groups of women.

The facilitator’s guide focuses on the day-to-day running of Circles, including planning the content, dealing with group dynamics, developing facilitation techniques and managing safeguarding and privacy within the group space. The guide also outlines the benefits for healthcare professionals. Previous research has found that practitioners who facilitate group care report improved job satisfaction, professional development opportunities and a greater ability to provide high-quality care.

Speaking about the launch of the guides, Octavia said:

“At the heart of Pregnancy Circles and Pregnancy & Parenting Circles is a flattening of traditional hierarchies to enable information-sharing between professionals and group participants, each of whom bring a range of expertise and experience to pregnancy-related topics.

“Community building is central to the impact of group care: harnessing the power of peer learning and support is an important part of the effectiveness of group care. This can be especially impactful for marginalised communities who may be more isolated and report not being listened to in traditional care.”

The guides and other resources are available to download for free from the CMCHR website - Resources | City St George's, University of London