Mina Soleimani,1,*Hanane Hamidi,2Fatemeh Mohebi,3
1. MSc in Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2. Undergraduate nursing student, Khalkhal University 3. Molecular Medicine Research Center Hormozgan Health Institute, Hormozgan University Of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas,
Introduction: Postponing in becoming parent has steadily increased during the past decades in some countries. Studies show that many social, economic and individual factors contribute to the lower fertility behavior among new generations. Apart from these, poor fertility knowledge and misconceptions might be responsible for delay in childbearing among young couples. On the other hand, the pervasiveness of media into our everyday lives, can be demonstrated by their ability to influence aspects of our cognitive function including attention, knowledge, and awareness. Therefore, there is a serious need for correct reproductive and fertility health knowledge before pregnancy for public through social media. The aim of the present study was to what extent interventions and information within social media can positively impact health behaviors.
Methods: In this review article we comprehensively studied more than 30 article of PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of science, and science direct from 2010 to 2021.
Results: 27 studies show that there is a significant relationship between educational fertility information and childbearing decision and about 3 studies didn’t find anything significant. Unlike other high-cost interventions, this low-cost educational intervention had helped couples for making informed fertility decisions. There was slight difference in the effect of the type of provided educational packages including videos, lectures and smartphones app.
Conclusion: According to these studies we can conclude that social media can promote fertility knowledge and to reduce involuntary childlessness between young couples who postpone their first birth while they might not have any important social and economic obstacles. But, there was a lack of depth in this information and collaboration with counselors which this intervention can be solved with accurate and specialized design and follow-up by consultants.