In October 2002 the ex-RCIVI director of education and research Rosaline Steele wrote an editorial in the RCM Midwives Journal on problem-based learning (PBL), entitled 'the emperor's new clothes or a new way of seeing?' This is a response to that article.

Being obese or gaining excessive weight during pregnancy can increase health risks for mother and baby. Adopting a healthy diet and increasing physical activity reduces these risks and has long-term health benefits for women. Despite this, women do not always maintain a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy. Aim To explore the factors that encouraged and prevented a diverse group of women to maintain a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy. Methods A total of 12 women participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews, underpinned by the theory of planned behaviour. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim then subject to deductive thematic analysis. Findings Four themes emerged: women's knowledge of a healthy lifestyle, sociocultural influences, physical health and health professional support. These influenced women's intentions and actual behaviours during pregnancy. Conclusions Enhanced health professional advice may motivate women to adopt a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy. This could be through new means such as health technology.

There is a marked increase in the number of General Practitioner (GP) organisations across Europe providing out of hours (OOH) emergency primary care services whereby GPs and/or Nurse Practitioners (NPs), provide telephone consultations to patients (Giesen et al., 2007a, McKinstry et al., 2009, Derkx et al., 2009). This has been an important development to manage the rising demand for health care with increasingly scarce resources (Blank et al., 2012, Purc-Stephenson and Thrasher, 2010) and also reduces unnecessary attendance at accident and emergency departments or home visits by GPs (Bunn et al., 2005, Roberts et al., 2008)... In this study we describe the characteristics of telephone consultation calls made by pregnant women to an OOH service run by a GP co-operative and also to compare and contrast the differences between the way the calls were handled by GPs and Nurse Practitioners (NPs). The NPs were qualified and registered nurses experienced in primary care or emergency care settings and none were practicing.