Table 1.
Criteria for including studies in the review
| Inclusion criteria | |
|---|---|
| Study design | Experimental or observational effectiveness evaluation, with control or comparator group |
| Population | Socially disadvantaged or vulnerable populations* |
| Other specified at risk population: teenagers, obese pregnant women, substance users, alcohol misusers, women who are HIV positive | |
| Intervention | Intervention involving the organisation and/or delivery of: |
| • comprehensive antenatal care | |
| • components of antenatal care provided in the context of normal antenatal care | |
| and/or | |
| • Stand alone interventions involving the provision of health or social care to pregnant women delivered as an adjunct to normal antenatal care | |
| Exclusions: | |
| • stand-alone interventions targeting pregnant women not delivered and/or evaluated in conjunction with standard antenatal care | |
| • clinical interventions, unless evaluated in the context of a broader package of antenatal care | |
| • interventions with a focus on labour/birth or the periconceptional period | |
| • interventions involving only opiate substitution | |
| Comparator | Standard antenatal care or a specified alternative model of antenatal care |
| Outcome | • Preterm birth (or "preterm labour") expressed as the number/proportion of women delivering before 37 weeks gestation (or some other cut-off point <37 weeks) |
| • Any measure of neonatal/infant mortality, but excluding perinatal mortality | |
| • Birth prevalence of congenital anomalies | |
| • SIDS/SUDI | |
| Type of publication | Journal articles reporting primary research in English and non-English language journal articles with an English Language abstract |
| Geographical area | OECD member countries, excluding Mexico and Turkey** |
| Time period | Published 1990 onwards |
*Including: women living in deprived areas, disadvantaged minority ethnic/racial groups, women in prison, travellers, homeless women, asylum seekers and refugees, recently arrived migrants/other immigrant groups, victims of abuse, women with mental illness/mental health problems, women with learning disabilities, sex workers.
**High-income countries with low infant mortality.