Value Modifiers

Four broad value modifiers emerged from the analysis: cross-referencing information sources, developing consensus amongst sources, seeking a unified mes and personal experience.

Yeah, yeah, I do remember hearing that. So definitely if they pulled other things

already then obviously there’s a, there’s something going on there. Why haven’t

bly not enough, like you said,

The perceived strength of a particular information source influenced how

seriously a risk claim was considered and subsequently be a part of the woman’s decision ources were considered more likely to be acted on by women than weak sources. However, the inherent value of an information source could

referencing

Cross-referencing information sources was one of the more frequently discussed methods women used to ensure the information they were receiving was worth

considering. Weak sources were often cross-referenced with strong sources before it was seriously considered. PW-13 discussed how she would check information she read on the internet with her physician:

Um, I’m usually just, like, happy with what the doctor says but if it was something

that I’d read on the Internet then I would, that’s something I would ask the doctor

about it, but if the doctor had said it in the first place I wouldn’t go check on the

Internet.

PW-17 also claimed to check information she learned from Tele-health with her physician:

I just wait if I don’t know. I usually call Tele-health if I want to know stuff. Um,

oh, they can be, very really helpful or overly useless. So it’s one extreme to the

other. But it’s worth a shot. If you go to the doctor’s the next day and they say a

completely different thing then you just wasted your time trying to do that…

Upon hearing media coverage about the health effects of the endocrine disruptor

Bisphenol A (BPA), PW-19 was unsure whether or not she was going to buy new bottles until they were officially recalled by manufacturers:

That was like, my baby…but there might be something wrong, or, yeah, that was

the tipping point when they… so when I hear hype and I’m like, oh, it’s, just, you

know, the story of the week, but when the manufacturers are starting to recall and

Women felt that the inherent value of weak sources could be strengthened when vouched by strong sources. Indeed, this was seen as an ideal method for many of the pregnant women to receive information regarding risk. This sentiment was captured by PW-20’s comments:

Maybe even to be given a resource that they trust would be good, like a, like if

they have…a book that they could recommend, that would be helpful because they

don’t have a lot of time to go over everything. PW-22 stated:

Well I find my doctor basically says what I, what I think, like he’ll support the,

what you hear on the news, right, they’re immunizing for this, and yes it’s

important or no it isn’t. It’s important for them to be the same, and if they

weren’t’ then I would ask friends, ask around…

PW-15 expressed a desire for the government to create and endorse a website that provides feedback about risks and the current level of concern:

If the person has the choice, if they go [online] the government resource or

whatever maybe, and there was, like on the horizon, like low risk, right now, you

could at least look at that and see…

Other strategies women used involved seeking a consensus amongst sources of information. This often pertained to internet searching as women tried to make sense of information on their own. For example, PW-13 said

Um, yeah I do because I usually use more than one, I go to more than one, like I

people, like, just if it’s one of those websites where it’s a lot of people explaining

it then it’s usually more believable than, you know.

When PW-23 was asked how she makes sense of new information from the internet, she replied:

I don’t know, I just go with, like a lot of them say the same thing, I figure they

must be close to the same.

PW-14 explained that she tries to find a balance when the information she finds online conflicts:

I usually look at a bunch of different ones [sites] and then from those like

basically, like, you can tell which ones are one way and the other way and I kind

of like to be in the middle.

Developing a consensus amongst sources offered women an efficient way to quickly appraise new information.

Receiving a unified and consistent message regarding risk in pregnancy from strong sources was also considered important to the women. However, inconsistent messages from strong sources would potentially reduce women’s confidence in the information they received. As PW-19 commented:

Cause there are so many mixed messages about everything in pregnancy. So, like

one doctor one thing, another doctor says another thing, you obviously go with

what your doctor says, but something like this where there’s a unified message

should come from a public health board or something like that, or even doctors.

PW-22 discussed a similar issue regarding consistent messages between Health Canada and her physician:

Well, if my doctor said it I would want to know how he knows, but, I think on the

news you hear that, yeah, Health Canada has issued a warning on this and then

you’d ask your doctor about it and, yeah, you’d want them to be the same.

Finally, women’s personal experience was often the most significant and meaningful method of appraising and modifying the value of new information. For example, PW-12’s professional training as a regulated health professional made her comfortable with her ability to appraise online information effectively. PW-12 said:

[Being a nurse I’m] used to doing research papers and term papers so you get

used to using Medline and PubMed and those type of things where you know

where to find the information, whereas maybe your lay person might not know

where to go to find information, might just plain Google and not realise some

stuff that’s not as relevant.

Women often recalled experiences of previous pregnancies as a powerful means of sorting through information. PW-22’s comments captured this sentiment well:

Well it’s, it’s all useful, like, it depends, like the first one obviously I went through

it all [information from the government] and then with the second and third

[pregnancy] you kind of know… Right. Well like car seats. Nothing’s changed

with the car seats so you don’t need that any more cause nothing’s changed, or,

nutrition, um, just sleeping on their back, like, it’s still put them to sleep on their

back. I mean ten years ago it was on their side, or…

PW-20 described being more relaxed about risk relative to her first pregnancy:

Um, again with my first pregnancy I was probably, like a 10 out of 10 worried

was, like just the gas cap off the lawnmower one day, and I was filling it up, and I

got a little bit of gas on my hands, I went in to wash it off, and I was worried, Oh

no!, I touched the gas, you know, and, um, just cause you’re, you’re not sure what

can hurt the baby. And people were that’s a little excessive…I have definitely

calmed down in terms of how worried I am now.

For PW-23, however, her experiences with loss during previous pregnancies had made her more risk aversive. As she explained:

My first one I was, I was fine, like, I heard some horror stories but there’s always

horror stories, and then I got in a car accident and lost my second pregnancy.

And then my third one was the gastroschisis and now this one I’m like

something’s going to go wrong, you know, I need to, whatever I did, I shouldn’t

do, I don’t know, it’s scary… I hate driving, I hate driving cause I’m scared that,

you know, like if ever it comes out or, like, you know, I don’t know, I hate doing

anything, really. I’d rather just have the baby and that would be that.

The four methods described above to appraise new information were applied idiosyncratically by women. If the information was deemed significant after this process, it would be subjected to another set of processes determining whether or not these

changes were feasible to adopt.