Falling Short of Guidelines? Nutrition and Weight Gain Knowledge in Pregnancy

Downs, Danielle Symons; Savage, Jennifer S.; Rauff, Erica L.

doi:10.4172/2167-0420.1000184

Cited by 23 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…According to the Norwegian guidelines for antenatal care, all prenatal patients should receive lifestyle counselling, including advice on PA, GWG, and nutrition on the first prenatal visit [34]. Consistent with other studies, only one-fourth of women in this study reported receiving advice from their midwife or family physician on these topics [8,9,13,14,19,20]. Moreover, only 10 participants received advice consistent with the GWG guidelines.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…On the contrary, a meta-analysis showed that health websites often lacked accuracy and that it was difficult to find high quality sites [11]. Others have found that pregnant women may perceive advice from family physicians and midwives confusing, vague, contradictory, and frequently changing [9,12-14]. In addition, research shows that most health care providers, regardless of medical training, lack knowledge and awareness of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [7] PA guidelines [13,15] and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) [16] GWG guidelines [15,17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In previous studies investigating pregnant women’s information sources on PA, GWG, and/or nutrition [8-10,13,14,19,21-27], the population sizes were generally small (N=17-60) [9,13,14,21,23,26] and information sources were rarely the main outcome [9,13,19,22-26]. In addition, studies of moderate methodological quality and sufficient population sizes (N=350-368) have recruited women in the postpartum period, limiting the results to the women’s memory [10,27], or halfway through pregnancy (mean 20.8 weeks) [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What the Health? Information Sources and Maternal Lifestyle Behaviors

Dalhaug¹,

Haakstad²

2019

Interact J Med Res

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Background Regular physical activity (PA), adequate gestational weight gain (GWG), and healthy eating are important for the long-term health of both mother and baby. Hence, it is important that women receive current and updated advice on these topics and are encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the main information sources among pregnant women regarding PA, GWG, and nutrition as well as to evaluate how these information sources may affect their health behaviors. Methods A cross-sectional study design, comprising an electronic questionnaire, was distributed to 2 antenatal clinics, as well as pregnancy-related online chat forums and social media. The inclusion criteria were ≥18 years, ≥20 weeks gestation, and able to read and write Norwegian. In total, 150 pregnant women answered the questionnaire, which was a mix of 11-point Likert scales, close-ended questions, and semi–close-ended questions with the option to elaborate. The relationship between information sources and selected variables, including health behaviors and descriptive variables, were assessed by logistic regression, linear regression, or chi-square as appropriate ( P <.05). Results Mean age (years), gestation week, and prepregnancy body mass index (kg/m 2 ) were 31.1 (SD 4.3), 30.6 (SD 5.9), and 24.2 (SD 4.2), respectively. More than eight out of 10 had received or retrieved information about nutrition (88.7%, 133/150) and PA (80.7%, 121/150), whereas 54.0% (81/150) reported information on GWG. When combining all 3 lifestyle factors, 38.5% had retrieved information from blogs and online forums and 26.6%, from their midwife or family physician. Women who reported the internet and media as their primary source of information on weight gain had increased odds of gaining weight below the Institute of Medicine (IOM) guidelines compared with gaining within the guidelines (odds ratio [OR] 15.5, 95% CI 1.4-167.4; P =.02). Higher compliance with nutritional guidelines was seen among those who cited the internet and media as their main source of information on nutrition (beta=.7, 95% CI 0.07-1.3; P =.03). On the other side, receiving advice from friends and family on weight gain was significantly associated with gaining weight above the IOM guidelines compared with gaining within the guidelines (OR 12.0, 95% CI 1.3-111.7; P =.03). No other associations were found between information sources and health behaviors. Conclusions The small number of health professionals giving information and the extensive use of internet- and media-based sources emphasize the need to address the quality of internet advice and guide women toward trustworthy sources of information during pregnancy. The association between information sources and PA, ...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What the Health? Information Sources and Maternal Lifestyle Behaviors

Dalhaug¹,

Haakstad²

2019

Interact J Med Res

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“…The first domain of this questionnaire, weight gain knowledge, has also been assessed separately in other studies. Most studies contains at least the evaluation whether women follow the guidelines to proper weight gain according to their respective weight and height [47][48][49]. In addition, our questionnaire contains items asking pregnant women whether they know that little or excessive weight gain has an impact on maternal and child's health.…”

Section: Importance Of Nutrientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of questionnaire as an instrument to measure the level of nutritional and weight gain knowledge in pregnant women in Poland. A pilot study

Mierzejewska¹,

Honorato-Rzeszewicz²,

Świątkowska³

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

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Pregnancy is a period in life in which women are willing to improve their lifestyle. Providing proper information for these women is crucial for their health and the health of their offspring. Clear information about weak points in their nutritional and weight gain knowledge is the first step for proper health care assistance. There are a few previous studies evaluating the nutritional and weight gain knowledge of pregnant women. In the few studies available, different approaches were taken and there was no wider discussion on the content of the questionnaires attempting to measure level of knowledge. The aim of this study, designed in a pilot fashion, was to test the adequacy of the questionnaire as a research instrument in a group of 139 pregnant Polish women. The developed instrument is a 33-item questionnaire comprising four domains: weight gain, importance of nutrients, quality and quantity of food intake. The results of this study indicate that the questionnaire is stable and internal consistency is acceptable (Cronbach's alpha > 0.7) for dimensions with more than four items. For dimensions with less than four items, internal consistency was poor (Cronbach's alpha < 0.7). The cumulative explained variance for domains weight gain, importance of nutrients, quantity and quality of food intake was 54.74%, 42.74%, 54.42% and 48.99% respectively. Results from validity, reliability and factor analysis indicate that the questionnaire is adequate for its purpose.

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“…However, many women are unaware of these guidelines [8,9]. In the United States, only 32% of women gain the appropriate amount of weight during pregnancy based on the IOM guidelines, while 47% of women gain excessive weight and 21% gain inadequate weight [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crowdsourcing and the Accuracy of Online Information Regarding Weight Gain in Pregnancy: A Descriptive Study

et al. 2016

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BackgroundExcess weight gain affects nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States and is a strong risk factor for adverse maternal and fetal outcomes, including long-term obesity. The Internet is a prominent source of information during pregnancy; however, the accuracy of this online information is unknown.ObjectiveTo identify, characterize, and assess the accuracy of frequently accessed webpages containing information about weight gain during pregnancy.MethodsA descriptive study was used to identify and search frequently used phrases related to weight gain during pregnancy on the Google search engine. The first 10 webpages of each query were characterized by type and then assessed for accuracy and completeness, as compared to Institute of Medicine guidelines, using crowdsourcing.ResultsA total of 114 queries were searched, yielding 305 unique webpages. Of these webpages, 181 (59.3%) included information regarding weight gain during pregnancy. Out of 181 webpages, 62 (34.3%) contained no specific recommendations, 48 (26.5%) contained accurate but incomplete recommendations, 41 (22.7%) contained complete and accurate recommendations, and 22 (12.2%) were inaccurate. Webpages were most commonly from for-profit websites (112/181, 61.9%), followed by government (19/181, 10.5%), medical organizations or associations (13/181, 7.2%), and news sites (12/181, 6.6%). The largest proportion of for-profit sites contained no specific recommendations (44/112, 39.3%). Among pages that provided inaccurate information (22/181, 12.2%), 68% (15/22) were from for-profit sites.ConclusionsFor-profit websites dominate the online space with regard to weight gain during pregnancy and largely contain incomplete, inaccurate, or no specific recommendations. This represents a significant information gap regarding an important risk factor for obesity among mothers and infants. Our findings suggest that greater clinical and public health efforts to disseminate accurate information regarding healthy weight gain during pregnancy may help prevent significant morbidity and may support healthier pregnancies among at-risk women and children.

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Falling Short of Guidelines? Nutrition and Weight Gain Knowledge in Pregnancy

Cited by 23 publications

References 19 publications

What the Health? Information Sources and Maternal Lifestyle Behaviors

What the Health? Information Sources and Maternal Lifestyle Behaviors

Evaluation of questionnaire as an instrument to measure the level of nutritional and weight gain knowledge in pregnant women in Poland. A pilot study

Crowdsourcing and the Accuracy of Online Information Regarding Weight Gain in Pregnancy: A Descriptive Study

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