Integrating social media into routine midwifery services: Maternity Direct+

Abstract

The use of social media to disseminate and receive health messages has increased over the past ten years, and many women use social media to access pregnancy information. However, the NHS has been slow to integrate consumer facing Internet technologies into routine care services. This article describes an innovative social media project, Maternity Direct+, an Internet midwife employed by Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The Internet midwife uses Facebook to disseminate health messages and answer non-urgent questions from pregnant women, mothers up to 28 days after birth, and women planning a pregnancy. Findings from the project evaluation demonstrated a high level of demand for a responsive, evidence-based, non-urgent information and advice service for pregnant women and new mothers, and high levels of user satisfaction. The authors conclude that social media can be integrated into routine midwifery services and used to complement existing communication channels.