A review of men's participation in perinatal care: A systematic review

Pregnancy and childbirth is one of the most important events in the life of every woman that can be a memorable experience with positive consequences for the mother and the baby, under support of others, especially the spouse. Numerous interventions to promote men's participation have been conducted during this period. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of a systematic review of men's participation in prenatal care.

  This study is a systematic review of published articles on strategies to promote male participation, during pregnancy, childbirth and after childbirth (from 2000 to 2019), based on PRISMA guidelines, and the search was conducted by two scholars on the valid databases. Experimental and quasi-experimental studies, published on strategies for increasing male participation during perinatal period, published in national and international journals, were included in the study. Qualitative assessment of the articles was done using the Jadad and CONSORT checklist and the data extraction was based on the researcher's checklist.

In this systematic review, 4808 articles were identified. After reviewing the titles, and considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 15 articles were included in the study. The promotion strategies were categorized into four groups: female-centered, couple-centered, community-centered, and facility-centered.

According to the results of the study, in order to promote the participation of men in perinatal care, it should be planned on four areas of female-centered, couple-centered, community-centered and facility-centered.