Preconception care in South Asia: awareness, risk factors, and interventions— a scoping review
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Gupta, Asmita
Gopichandran, Vijayaprasad
Hirst, Jane
Sriram, Usha
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Objectives To review the prevalence of risk factors in preconception care of women of reproductive age and those actively planning pregnancy, the effectiveness of specific interventions and the awareness of preconception care and barriers to its delivery in South Asia.
Design A scoping review was performed.
Data sources A systematic search strategy was performed on PubMed and Scopus databases.
Eligibility criteria We included all studies on preconception risk factors, awareness and barriers to preconception care in South Asia. The search was limited to papers published between 2019 and 2024 in the English language alone.
Data extraction and synthesis We extracted the authors’ names, year of the study, study design, number of participants, risk factors, interventions, awareness levels, barriers to utilisation, and main findings of the study. We presented the findings through narrative synthesis.
Results We found 45 studies that met our inclusion criteria. The findings reveal that both undernutrition and overnutrition are prevalent risk factors in preconception women. Micronutrient deficiencies, specifically iron, iodine, zinc, vitamin A, and vitamin D, are common. In addition, behavioural and social risk factors such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence further increase the health risks faced by women in the preconception stage. Interventions focused solely on nutritional supplementation were found to have a modest impact on pregnancy outcomes. In contrast, integrated care packages that address multiple aspects of preconception health—nutritional, behavioural and social—may yield more substantial benefits. Several sociocultural and systemic barriers are potential limiting factors in the widespread utilisation of preconception care services.
Conclusions Future studies must focus on designing a comprehensive care package for preconception that extends beyond nutritional interventions and study their implementation at the community level.
Design A scoping review was performed.
Data sources A systematic search strategy was performed on PubMed and Scopus databases.
Eligibility criteria We included all studies on preconception risk factors, awareness and barriers to preconception care in South Asia. The search was limited to papers published between 2019 and 2024 in the English language alone.
Data extraction and synthesis We extracted the authors’ names, year of the study, study design, number of participants, risk factors, interventions, awareness levels, barriers to utilisation, and main findings of the study. We presented the findings through narrative synthesis.
Results We found 45 studies that met our inclusion criteria. The findings reveal that both undernutrition and overnutrition are prevalent risk factors in preconception women. Micronutrient deficiencies, specifically iron, iodine, zinc, vitamin A, and vitamin D, are common. In addition, behavioural and social risk factors such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence further increase the health risks faced by women in the preconception stage. Interventions focused solely on nutritional supplementation were found to have a modest impact on pregnancy outcomes. In contrast, integrated care packages that address multiple aspects of preconception health—nutritional, behavioural and social—may yield more substantial benefits. Several sociocultural and systemic barriers are potential limiting factors in the widespread utilisation of preconception care services.
Conclusions Future studies must focus on designing a comprehensive care package for preconception that extends beyond nutritional interventions and study their implementation at the community level.
Date Issued
2025-10-15
Date Acceptance
2025-09-08
Citation
BMJ Public Health, 2025, 3 (2)
ISSN
2753-4294
Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
BMJ Public Health
Volume
3
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2025, The Author(s). Published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e003339
Date Publish Online
2025-10-15