Oakley A
Soc Sci Med. 1985;21(11):1259-68. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(85)90275-8.
This paper examines the thesis that social support in pregnancy is capable of affecting birthweight as one easily measurable aspect of pregnancy outcome. The focus of the paper is on birthweight, since low birthweight is a relatively stable and important factor in social inequalities in perinatal health. The paper reviews the published literature on social support in pregnancy including simple observational and nonrandomized intervention studies and also randomized controlled trials of 'social' interventions. The methodological problems associated with some of these studies are discussed. However, it is concluded that there is considerable evidence to suggest that intervention programmes aimed at improving the 'social' side of antenatal care are capable of affecting birthweight and other 'hard' measures of pregnancy outcome. It is suggested that traditional professional approaches to pregnancy which divide the medical from the social perspective, have acted to prevent recognition of this evidence and its relevance to maternity care policy.
孕期的社会支持能够影响出生体重，而出生体重是孕期结局一个易于测量的方面。本文的重点是出生体重，因为低出生体重是围产期健康社会不平等中一个相对稳定且重要的因素。本文回顾了已发表的关于孕期社会支持的文献，包括简单的观察性研究和非随机干预研究，以及“社会”干预的随机对照试验。讨论了其中一些研究存在的方法学问题。然而，得出的结论是，有大量证据表明，旨在改善产前护理“社会”层面的干预项目能够影响出生体重以及孕期结局的其他“硬性”指标。有人认为，传统的将医学与社会视角区分开来的孕期专业方法，阻碍了对这一证据及其与孕产妇护理政策相关性的认识。
