Starting Pediatric Obesity Prevention in Pregnancy

Not Applicable

Completed

Interventions: Behavioral: Home visit
Behavioral: Social network building intervention

Brief Summary: The purpose of this study is to examine whether we can use social networks to spread health information and health behaviors during pregnancy to prevent excessive gestational weight gain.

Detailed Description: The long-term goal of this research is to prevent obesity-related adverse health outcomes for future generations by applying information emerging from social network studies to the development of new population-based behavioral interventions. There are a number of critical periods during fetal development that appear to influence the later development of obesity. Interventions that prevent insult to these critical windows from occurring could improve children's life course trajectories. This project sets the groundwork for examining whether social networks could explicitly be utilized to support women in gaining weight during pregnancy within their clinically recommended weight gain target.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

any race/ethnicity
speak Spanish or English
≥16 years
>10 and <28 weeks pregnant
in prenatal care
anticipating remaining in Middle Tennessee for their full gestation
willing to sign a medical information release form so that we can abstract weight measures from their obstetric and pediatric records

Exclusion Criteria

speak neither Spanish or English
<16 years
< 10 weeks or >28 weeks pregnant
not in prenatal care
anticipating leaving Middle Tennessee before full gestation
unwilling to sign medical information release form
current or past (within last 12 months) enrollment in another research program that targets weight, physical activity, nutrition

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Home visit	Home visit	Home visits focused on preventable infant injuries
Social network building intervention	Social network building intervention	Healthy lifestyle intervention focused on building healthy lifestyle skills and reciprocal social ties between the intervention group members

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Gestational Weight Gain	Duration of pregnancy	Total weight gain during pregnancy extracted from medical record, relative to the 2009 Institute of Medicine (IOM) Weight Gain Recommendations for Pregnancy. (Reference: Institute of Medicine (US). Weight gain during pregnancy: reexamining the guidelines. Washington, DC. National Academies Press; 2009. 2009 National Academy of Sciences.)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Social Network	2 times over 12 weeks (Week 6, Week 12)	Number of discussion partners within the intervention group. Participants were asked to identify by name any program participants with whom they had spoken about their pregnancy or pregnancy-related health behaviors.