Study Overview
Study Overview
The birth of a child is a joyous life event but can be challenging for physician trainees. Pregnancy-related stigma, health concerns due to grueling work schedules, and lack of support for lactation and childcare contribute to stress and fatigue. These struggles have been associated with professional dissatisfaction, thoughts of leaving the training program, unplanned changes in career trajectory, and postpartum depression. Despite national improvements in parental leave, few program-level interventions have been designed to support new mothers in training. Moreover, there is no data to demonstrate whether providing better support actually makes a difference in overall wellbeing. Previous research has identified four areas of need for expectant and new mother physician trainees:
Mentorship
Lactation
Sleep / Fatigue
Self-Care
The 4th Trimester Initiative is a multicenter prospective, randomized trial seeking to improve wellbeing of expectant and new trainee childbearing mothers. We will evaluate whether addressing these four challenges can improve burnout, career satisfaction, sleep, achievement of breastfeeding goals, and more.
Everyone Will Be Asked To
Wear a Fitbit for sleep tracking
Every participant will receive a free Fitbit Luxe to track sleep. We picked a beautiful model to make it easy to wear. It is really important to have it on every day (at least when you sleep or nap) to help us understand how caring for a baby contributes to fatigue.
Take Several Surveys To Assess Burnout
The study investigators are also busy moms and physicians/surgeons so we designed these surveys to be as short and convenient as possible. They are emailed to you and the whole thing can be done on your smartphone in minutes. There are three short surveys that take 2-5 minutes, and three longer surveys that take 10-15 minutes. Questions assess
- Burnout
- How Work Is Impacting Your Personal Relationships
- Fatigue
- Self-reported Medical Errors
- Career Satisfaction
- Mood
When your baby is 6 months old we’d like to ask you some questions about program support for new moms. Since things change a lot over the first year, we hope each of you will be also willing to fill out a brief survey around your baby’s first birthday.