RADIANT study aims to improve weight inclusiveness in maternity care
The RADIANT Study team
A new study at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) is developing nationally agreed best practice principles for weight-inclusive maternity care, aiming to help end discrimination based on weight and body size in maternity.
RADIANT is a consumer co-designed and co-led study which was commenced due to consistent consumer feedback that maternity care services and policies were harming larger bodied women.
The study is led by equal numbers of academic and consumer co-investigators including Lived Experience Expert Group lead mother-of-three Ahlia Griffiths and maternity consumer-turned-researcher Dr Bec Jenkinson, supported by RBWH Obstetric Physician Professor Leonie Callaway and RBWH Midwife A/Professor Lauren Kearney alongside many additional contributors.
Dr Bec Jenkinson said the study evolved out of the team listening to the feedback consumers were providing to the hospital.
“We then identified experts in weight stigma, created a team, and developed a series of studies to better understand what we were hearing including a qualitative study of women’s experiences and the MatCARES study which provided the basis for understanding the maternity clinician perspective nationally,” Dr Jenkinson said.
“Based on this formative research, RADIANT then co-developed a series of candidates for best practice principles which were refined and presented in a face-to-face workshop to 54 people with lived experience and representatives of stakeholder organisations to agree on five core themes.
“We have recently completed obtaining endorsement for the best practice principles from all relevant organisations and are in the final stages of preparing the manuscript.”
The research team said they were shocked by women’s stories shared with them and inspired by their resilience.
“We were also surprised by the deep reflection and thinking that some maternity care providers have done to really question weight-centric care and find better approaches,” Dr Jenkinson said.
“We know we can do better and we hope the principles we are developing help us to make maternity care better for women.”
The RADIANT Study was recently awarded ‘Excellence in participant experience’ in the 2025 Australian Consumer Partnership in Research Awards.
The RADIANT team are grateful for funding from the Women’s Health Research Translation Network of the Australian Health Research Alliance, Health and Wellbeing Queensland and Health Translation Queensland, along with the support of The University of Queensland.