Project
Power 4 a Healthy Pregnancy - The development, implementation and evaluation of a strategy to improve diet quality of pregnant women using empowerment
A healthy diet is important for everyone, but crucial during pregnancy for the health of both mother and child. However, pregnant women, especially those with lower socioeconomic status (SES), often fail to meet the nutritional requirements. Healthy nutrition promotion by midwives is very promising, but midwives find it difficult to contribute to a healthier dietary intake for pregnant women. The goal of this research project is to develop, implement and evaluate a strategy to improve diet quality of pregnant women using empowerment. This will contribute to a healthy and successful start of life.
In this research, an empowerment strategy will be developed, implemented, evaluated and optimized jointly with stakeholders – i.e. midwives, dieticians and pregnant women and their partners. The developed program Power 4 a Healthy Pregnancy aims improve the diet quality of pregnancy women using empowerment. Power 4 a Healthy Pregnancy has been implemented in sixteen midwifery practices in the Netherlands with 342 participating pregnant women. Using qualitative and quantitative research methods, insights were gained into the impact of Power 4 a Healthy Pregnancy on pregnant women, their experiences with the strategy and the evaluation of the strategy by midwives and dieticians in terms of benefits and barriers, impact, and multidisciplinary collaboration. In addition, aspects of the strategy will be further explored and developed – such as partner involvement, bridging antenatal and postnatal care regarding dietary support, and improving the diets of parents with a baby.
The project is part of the “Regio Deal Foodvalley”, part 2: "Nutrition and Health, from early start to the old day”