Coparenting interventions to support healthy lifestyle changes for women, partners and children during and post pregnancy

Overweight and obesity and their related conditions are crucial public health problems affecting 25% of children and 67% of adults. The perinatal period is the highest risk period for women’s weight gain and development of obesity. Reproductive-aged women have the highest risk of weight gain compared to other population groups, and excessive gestational weight gain and weight retention is a primary contributor. Excessive pregnancy weight gain has a detrimental impact on fetal development and birth outcomes. Greater postpartum weight retention is also associated with poor outcomes for mothers including higher risk of midlife obesity, associated diseases such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and poor maternal, fetal and child outcomes in subsequent pregnancies. Women’s ability to make and sustain behavioral lifestyle changes largely depends on the support and cooperation from their partner, however most antenatal and postpartum lifestyle interventions fail to include women’s residential co-parent. Engaging couples during the transition into parenthood and enhancing supportive co-parenting relations will occur through the proposed adaption of an existing evidence-based intervention. It has a novel, co-designed focus on co-parental coordination around healthy family lifestyle behaviours with the aim of reducing the prevalence of parental obesity and enhancing parental obesity-related health. Using the knowledge to action framework, this project will include evidence synthesis of existing data sets to examine co-parenting in antenatal interventions and parental weight; survey development to examine relationships between co-parenting, mental health, sleep, weight and lifestyle behaviours; and co-development of the new intervention with stakeholder engagement leading to intervention piloting.