SynthesisJournal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association2026
Experiences of Food Insecurity During Pregnancy in High-Income Countries: A Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Studies.
Synthesis in Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Experiences of Food Insecurity During Pregnancy in High-Income Countries: A Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Studies.Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association · 2026Pooled it
- Trial
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionFood insecurity, when individuals do not have sufficient access to food, has rapidly increased in high-income countries (HICs) since the 2008 global financial crisis. Women are particularly at risk of experiencing food insecurity, and during pregnancy, this can have detrimental physical and emotional health implications.
objectiveTo synthesise qualitative research exploring pregnant women's experiences of food insecurity in HICs (PROSPERO 2023 CRD42023404774).
methodsSystematic review of qualitative literature reporting data on women's experiences of food insecurity. Six databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL, ASSIA, Scopus) and grey literature sources were searched, followed by forwards and backwards citation chaining for all included studies. Screening of titles, abstracts and full-texts, data extractions and quality appraisals (using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Qualitative Studies Checklist) were completed in duplicate. Certainty in the evidence was evaluated using GRADE-CERQual. PARTICIPANTS/
settingFood-insecure pregnant and postnatal women, in HICs, since the global financial crisis of 2008.
main outcome measuresExperiences of food insecurity during pregnancy. ANALYSES: Thematic synthesis using NVivo14 to code data. Hand-drawn thematic maps were used to group codes into sub-themes and overarching themes. Coding and hand-drawn thematic maps were combined to create a final visual summary of analytical themes.
resultsSearches resulted in 32,685 studies, and 32 were included (n = 20 North America, n = 10 Europe, n = 2 Australia). Findings identified three overarching themes: (1) barriers in access to food, (2) impact on physical and mental health, and (3) established individual, informal and statutory coping strategies. Women frequently discussed barriers to accessing fresh fruit and vegetables, resulting in poorer quality diets. Whilst qualitative data extracted precluded any direct pregnancy versus pre-pregnancy comparison, pregnancy appeared to exacerbate the experiences of food insecurity for women. The future arrival of a newborn created additional financial concerns along with worries over nutritional needs. Reliance on others was a recurrent strategy for pregnant women to mitigate the impact of food insecurity. The GRADE CERQual assessment showed moderate to high confidence in all findings.
conclusionsThe findings of this qualitative review-the first to focus on experiences of food insecurity during pregnancy across HICs-show that women are experiencing substantial impacts from food insecurity during this critical life course stage. Review findings emphasise the need for co-ordinated screening and interventions that aim to support women to mitigate the impacts of food insecurity and its underlying causes to improve postpartum health and wellbeing.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.