Table 1. Summary of characteristics of included studies.

Author	Country	Research design	Sample(N)	Aims	Chronic Condition	Pregnancy inclusion criteria	Pregnancy status and previous pregnancy experience	Analysis
Boardman (2013) [28] 1	United Kingdom	Qualitative semi-structured interview	7	1) To understand how epilepsy impacts on the experience of pregnancy, labour and birth. 2) To understand how pregnancy impacts on the experience of epilsepy.	Epilepsy	Pregnant (≤29 weeks) or delivered within 9 months	At the time of interview, three women were between 23 weeks and 29 weeks gestation. Four women were between 2.5 and 8.5 months postpartum. It was the first pregnancy for six women.	Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
McCorry et al (2012) [30]	United Kingdom	Qualitative semi-structured interview	14	1) To explore attitudes toward pregnancy planning and preconception care seeking among women with diabetes.	Type 1 Diabetes mellitus	Preconception or postpartum	Four women had previous pregnancies.	Phenomenological Approach
Ngu, Hay, & Menahem (2014) [33]	Australia	Case studies, Qualitative semi-structured interview	20	1) To understand the motivations of women with CHD to bear children. 2) To test the correlation of the clinicians and patients assessment of risk of the CHD to mother and child. 3) Assess if there are any discernable differences between the cohort with low risk CHD and those with high risk CHD.	Congenital heart disease	Completed 1+ successful pregnancies	Nine women had 1 child. Seven women had 2 children and four women had 3 children.	Thematic analysis
Rodrigues, Pereira Alves, Fialho Sim-Simc, and Surita (2020) [27]	Brazil	Qualitative Semi-structured interviews	26	To understand the meanings attributed to pregnancy by pregnant women with systemic lupus erythematosus during prenatal care.	Systemic Lupus Erythematosus	Currently pregnant	At the time of interviews all women were near 30 weeks gestation. Seven women had previously experienced miscarriages, 14 women had living children and five were in their first pregnancy.	Content analysis
Singh, Ingersoll, Gonder-Frederick, & Ritterband, (2019) [31]	United States	Qualitative semi-structured interviews	15	To explore women’s experiences with and perceptions of pregnancy-related diabetes management and support systems that hinder or facilitate their self-management efforts.	Type 1 Diabetes mellitus	Pregnant, planning pregnancy or has experienced pregnancy	At the time of interview three women were currently pregnant. 10 women were previously pregnant, and five were planning a pregnancy.	Thematic analysis
Tyer-Viola & Lopez (2014) [26]	United States	Qualitative semi-structured interview	8	To explore and describe the experience of pregnancy from the perspective of eight pregnant women with chronic illness	Chronic Kidney Disease, HIV, Lupus/Thyroid disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Genetic Muscular Disorder, Cardiac Valve Repair Type 1 Diabetes mellitus	Recruited when currently pregnant (>12 weeks, <24 weeks)	At the time of interview all women were past 36 weeks gestation or had delivered their baby within the last month.	Qualitative Description Analysis
Widnes, Schjøtt, & Granas (2012) [29]	Norway	Qualitative semi-structured interview	10	To examine risk perceptions and needs for medicines information in pregnant women with epilepsy	Epilepsy	Currently pregnant (>18 weeks)	At the time of interview women were between 20 to 34 weeks gestation. Four women had previous children.	Systematic text condensation
Wotherspoon, Young, McCance, & Holmes (2017) [32]	United Kingdom	Qualitative semi-structured interview	11	To provide insight into the knowledge of pre-eclampsia and views on implementation of a potential screening test for the condition in women with type 1 diabetes.	Type 1 Diabetes mellitus	Pre-conception, currently pregnant, up to 1 year post-partum	At the time of interview two women were planning a pregnancy. Nine women were currently pregnant with a mean gestation age of 24.6 weeks.	Thematic analysis

¹Thesis extracted from grey literature.