Systematic Review on Maternal Health Literacy and Infant Outcomes, 13,407 Participants

Eight studies from seven countries, involving 13,407 participants, systematically review associations between maternal health literacy and infant health outcomes. The review, conducted by Zanmei Li and published on figshare in April 2026, synthesizes evidence from MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science up to March 2025. It concludes maternal health literacy shows promising associations with outcomes like birth weight and neonatal jaundice, but the overall certainty of evidence is rated Low to Very Low.

Use Cases

• Meta-analysis of the association between maternal health literacy and birth weight based on the synthesized study results.
• Investigating behavioral pathways in maternal-child health based on the described distinction between behavioral and medically-determined outcomes.
• Assessing evidence quality for health literacy interventions using the provided GRADE and JBI framework ratings.
• Identifying research gaps for longitudinal studies on maternal health literacy based on the review's conclusions.

Strengths

• Follows PRISMA guidelines for systematic review methodology, suggesting a structured approach.
• Includes 13,407 participants across eight studies, providing a multi-study evidence base.
• Assesses methodological quality using JBI checklists and evidence certainty using the GRADE framework.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The GRADE framework rated the overall certainty of evidence as Low to Very Low.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for quantitative reuse.

Provenance

Source

Zanmei Li

Collection Method

Systematic review following PRISMA guidelines, searching MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science.

Time Range

Literature search from database inception through March 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-15 05:44:09; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Studies from seven countries (specific countries not listed).