Many women talk about pregnancy as a time when their weight started to ‘creep up’. Life becomes much busier for women when caring for a baby and going to weight loss groups may not work well for new mums.
Researchers have thought about other ways to help women lose weight after they have a baby that are more flexible such as a text message service. A small study to see if this might be a useful way to support weight loss after pregnancy was carried out - Women who recently had a baby helped design text messages.
One hundred mums who had had a baby in the last two years received weight management messages, or messages about child health and development, for 12 months. Women rated the messages very highly and felt they were supportive and motivating. Women receiving the weight loss messages lost more weight compared to those receiving the child health messages.
This now needs to be tested in a larger study with women from all parts of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to understand how well the messages work for everyone.
For this bigger study, 850 women with excess weight, will be recruited through social media, mother and baby groups and when they are in touch with health professionals.
Women will be assigned by chance to receive the weight loss text messages or text messages about child health and development for 12 months. Measures of weight and waist circumference and collection of a questionnaire at the start of the study and again after 6, 12 and 24 months will be carried out.
The researchers will also speak to women to see what they think of the text message service. Women will receive a token of appreciation for the time they have given to complete the research measures.