It is important for mothers to look after her own health after childbirth. However, this is often quite challenging for various reasons. This is what our research have found thus far:

The most common barriers stopping mothers from engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviours are:
• Lack of time
• Lack of sleep
• Difficulty prioritizing self over others
• Other barriers include: mental exhaustion, lack of social support for practical help and lack of motivation.

The most common facilitators helping mothers engage in healthy lifestyle behaviours are:
• Practical help from partner
• Social support from other mums
• Ability to organise and plan ahead
• Other facilitators include: practical support from extended family members, taking time for self, flexible work arrangements, reminding self of the benefits derived from exercising and others.

After knowing about the facilitators and barriers of mothers with young children, we would now like to design a lifestyle program that can help mums live healthy lifestyles after childbirth. To do this, we need a group of mums to help guide the design of the program. We anticipate this involvement would include participating in online survey or meetings and you wouldn’t have to be involved in all activities if time doesn’t permit.

I would like to invite you to be part of the Cardiometabolic Health and Implementation Research in Postpartum women (CHIRP) group.