How to Evaluate Research Studies and Recognize Misinformation in Perinatal Education

By Birth & Baby University · Last updated: October 2026 · 5 min read

Doulas are asked to be careful readers. Families bring studies, screenshots and social media claims, nurses ask where a statement came from, and your own continuing education is full of numbers. You do not need a statistics degree to do this well. You need a short routine, and an honest sense of what a given source can and cannot tell you. This article gives you one, using the Cochrane review on continuous labor support as a worked example.

Key takeaways

Quick answer: before you trust or repeat a claim, check who is making it and why, where it comes from, how current it is, and how strong the evidence behind it is. Read the quality rating and the limitations, not only the headline finding.

• MedlinePlus recommends asking who runs a source, what its purpose is, who pays for it, and where its information comes from.
• Good health information should link to or reference its sources and show dates when it was written, reviewed or updated.
• A good systematic review reports how certain the evidence is, not only what it found.
• "Associated with" and "caused" are different claims.

Step 1: Check the source, not the claim

The National Library of Medicine’s MedlinePlus guide to evaluating health information suggests a set of questions that work as a first filter (MedlinePlus, Evaluating Health Information):

• Who runs the site? Can you trust them to provide balanced, accurate information?
• What is the purpose? To inform the public, to sell products or services, or to promote opinions?
• Who pays for it? Advertising should be clearly marked, and funding from businesses may favor their products.
• Is there a review process? An editorial board, a content review process, a selection policy and writer qualifications.
• Where does the information come from? Content pages should have links or references to the sources.
• Is it current? Content pages should include dates when the information was written, reviewed or updated.

These questions apply to professional sources too, including a blog like this one. That is why this article cites its sources by name and link.

Step 2: Find the primary source

Social posts and summaries often compress a finding into one line and drop the qualifiers. Ask where the number came from and go to the original. For a systematic review, that means the review itself, or at minimum its abstract. For a guideline, it means the organization’s document, not a news story about it.

Step 3: Read what kind of study it is

The design shapes what a study can tell you. In an observational study, as Song and Chung put it, the investigator does not intervene and rather simply "observes" and assesses the strength of the relationship between an exposure and an outcome (Song and Chung, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery).

Random allocation can strengthen causal inference, while observational research can address questions that trials cannot. Study design is one part of the appraisal: also examine bias, relevance and uncertainty. A systematic review inherits limitations in its included evidence.

A systematic review, like the Cochrane review discussed below, sets out its search, its inclusion rules and how it judged each trial’s risk of bias before it pools results.

When a report says "associated with," take it at its word. The ACOG opinion on limiting intervention in labor uses exactly that language when it says continuous one-to-one support, such as from a doula, "is associated with improved outcomes" (ACOG Committee Opinion No. 766).

Step 4: Look at how certain the evidence is

Check the review’s certainty assessment as well as its effect estimate. In the 2017 continuous-support review, several important findings had low certainty. An interval spanning a relative risk of 1 can leave both benefit and harm plausible. Ask whether the study population, outcome and comparison fit the question you are trying to answer.

Step 5: Notice the numbers

• Relative or absolute? A relative risk describes a ratio between groups, not the chance for an individual.
• Confidence interval. Look at the range, not only the single estimate. A wide interval leaves more possibilities open than a narrow one.
• Who was studied? Look at who was included, and at who was not. A review that found no trials in a setting cannot draw conclusions about that setting.
• Which outcomes? A study may measure many outcomes. Check that the one being quoted is the one that was planned and reported, and look for the ones that were not helped.

Step 6: Spot common warning signs

These are patterns to be curious about, not proof of anything:

• A single study presented as settled science.
• A percentage with no denominator, or a dramatic number with no comparison group.
• A source that sells something that its conclusions recommend.
• No date, no author, no references.
• Language of certainty ("proves," "always," "never") where the research uses cautious verbs.
• Advice that conflicts with the person’s own clinician and expects you to carry it.

What to do when a client brings you a claim

A short, kind routine works:

1. Thank them for bringing it. Reading is a form of care.
2. Ask where it came from. "Do you remember where you saw that?"
3. Look at it together, briefly. Who wrote it, when, and what does it cite?
4. Keep your scope. What it means for their pregnancy or baby is a question for their clinician. Help them write it down.

The bottom line

Evidence literacy is not about being skeptical of everything. It is about knowing how much weight a claim can bear. Doulas who can say "the evidence suggests, and here is how strong it is" are more trusted by families and by the clinicians they work beside.

This article is for professional education. It is not medical, legal or tax advice. Check the standards of your certifying organization and the rules where you work.

Sources and further reading

• MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine. Evaluating Health Information (updated February 26, 2024). Read the source
• Song JW, Chung KC. Observational studies: cohort and case-control studies. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 2010. Read the source
• Bohren MA, Hofmeyr GJ, Sakala C, Fukuzawa RK, Cuthbert A. Continuous support for women during childbirth. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2017, issue 7, CD003766. Read the source
• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Committee Opinion No. 766: Approaches to Limit Intervention During Labor and Birth. Obstetrics & Gynecology 2019;133:e164 to e173. Read the source

More for professionals: the Professionals Blog.