Background

The Movements Matter campaign aimed to raise awareness of decreased fetal movements (DFM) among pregnant women and inform clinicians of best practice management.

Aim

To conduct a process evaluation of campaign implementation, and an impact evaluation of the campaign’s effects on knowledge and experiences of pregnant women, and attitudes and practices of clinicians in relation to DFM.

Methods

This study used a cross-sectional before-after design. Pregnant women and clinicians were sampled at five hospitals. Women were surveyed about their knowledge of DFM, and actions to take if they noticed DFM. Clinicians were asked about their current practices and attitudes about informing women about DFM. Logistic regression was used to calculate campaign effects on outcome measures.

Results

The Movements Matter campaign reached 653 262 people on social media, as well as being covered on news media and popular women’s websites. The evaluation surveyed 1142 pregnant women pre-campaign and 473 post-campaign, and 372 clinicians pre-campaign and 149 post-campaign. Following the campaign, women were more likely to be aware that babies should move the same amount in late pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.81, 95% CI 1.43–2.27), and were more likely to contact their health service immediately if their baby was moving less (aOR 1.52, 95% CI 1.22–1.91). Clinicians were 2.84 times more likely to recommend women should come in for assessment if they experience DFM (95% CI 1.35–5.97).

Conclusions

This evaluation has shown that a campaign using social media and in-hospital education materials led to some increases in knowledge about fetal movements among pregnant women.