Trapped in a maze: A meta-ethnography of women's experiences of alcohol use in pregnancy

Introduction

Despite the recognized link between prenatal alcohol consumption and various congenital anomalies, the negative consequences for women's own health and family health, as well as the work done in healthcare to prevent alcohol in pregnancy, the acceptance of alcohol use during pregnancy persists in numerous communities around the world. Knowledge about women's alcohol use in pregnancy and how it relates to the social and cultural context they are part of is important to help and support women in abstaining during pregnancy. This meta-ethnography aims to offer a novel interpretation and conceptual understanding of the experiences of women who consume alcohol during pregnancy by synthesizing insights from existing qualitative studies.

Methods

An interpretative meta-ethnographic design was chosen based on a systematic literature search in seven electronic databases, and manual searches were conducted in 2023. The CASP checklist was used to assess the 18 included articles.

Results

In the synthesis, we use the metaphor of being trapped in a maze to illustrate the complexity of pregnant women's experiences of drinking during pregnancy. Women who drink alcohol during pregnancy are navigating the maze in a whirlwind of conflicting information and knowledge. The findings show how sociocultural norms form rigid pathways within the maze. In relation to their sociocultural context, women use several motives to justify the routes chosen within the maze. The competing information, knowledge and clashing norms within women's sociocultural contexts leave women to navigate alone in the maze.

Conclusions

Alcohol in pregnancy needs to be conceptualized as an issue positioned at the intersection of social sciences and healthcare and needs to be handled accordingly, both through transdisciplinary research, by early prevention and multimodal interventions in healthcare and the broader society. Such interventions would benefit from drawing on knowledge about women's experiences with alcohol in pregnancy.