Background:
There are limited tools to assess diet quality in pregnant women in an Asian population. A healthy eating index for pregnant women in Singapore (HEI-SGP) was developed and its association with maternal characteristics examined.
Methods:
The HEI-SGP was adapted from the Healthy Eating Indices (HEI) and Alternate Healthy Eating Index for Pregnancy (AHEI-P) and modified accordingly to recommendations from the Singapore dietary guidelines for pregnant women. It included eight components to reflect the dietary adequacy and quality of food groups and two nutrient-based components to reflect nutrients to be taken in moderation. Total scores range from 0 to 100. Study participants were from a mother-offspring cohort study ā Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO), selected using criterion based sampling. Dietary intakes of these women were ascertained at 26ā28 weeks of gestation using 24-hour recalls and 3-day food diaries.
Results:
The HEI-SGP differentiated the diets qualitatively in the cohort of 955 women. The scores had a wide range of 12.6 - 94.3, with mean score of 52.4 (standard deviation 13.8) and were categorised by tertiles. Using one way ANOVA and chi-square tests, participants in the high tertile, compared to those in the middle and low tertiles, were more likely to meet recommendations for intakes of total fruits, whole fruits, total vegetables, dark green leafy and orange vegetables and dairy food groups (pā
License type:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Funding Info:
This study is supported by the Translational Clinical Research (TCR) Flagship Program on Developmental Pathways to Metabolic Disease funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and administered by the National Medical Research Council (NMRC), Singapore- NMRC/TCR/004-NUS/2008. Additional funding is provided by the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, A*STAR and Nestec. K. M. Godfrey is supported by the National Institute for Health Research through the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.