Objective: To determine the nutritional needs of pregnant adolescents. Low birth weight and preterm delivery significantly impact perinatal morbidity and mortality. One factor that has been identified as a means to address low birth weight is adequate maternal weight gain during pregnancy. One significant influence of adequate maternal weight gain during pregnancy is appropriate nutrition to support fetal growth and promote adequate maternal stores. Adequate maternal weight gain is of particular importance for pregnant adolescents, who are often still growing themselves. There is some evidence of maternal-fetal competition for nutrients during adolescent pregnancy. In addition, adolescent girls are often overly concerned about weight gain outside of pregnancy, and often participate in extreme behaviors in an attempt to keep weight at perceived desirable levels. These drastic behaviors can result in inadequate weight gain during pregnancy, low birth weight, and preterm delivery. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to survey postpartum adolescents during the first 5 days after delivery (while still hospitalized postpartum) regarding their perceived nutritional needs during pregnancy, what services were used, and how often they took advantage of nutritional services.
Design: Retrospective survey
Population, Sample, Setting, Years: 100 postpartum adolescents (14-17 years) are being recruited during their hospital stay from three area hospitals in a Midwestern city.
Concept or Variables Studied Together: N/A
Methods: This study will be guided by Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986). Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) consists of two components that influence behavior: perceived self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Self-efficacy is viewed as necessary to produce a particular outcome. Self-efficacy can be defined as an individual’s perception of his or her ability to perform a behavior. According to SCT, behavioral change (and the maintenance of the change) are directly related to what the individual expects to gain from completing the behavior and how confident one feels about being able to successfully complete the behavior (Bandura, 1986). Social Cognitive Theory also addresses the interaction between person, environment, and behavior (Bandura, 1986; 1992). Because this pilot study aims to address nutritional changes made during pregnancy, resources that were utilized, and how environment influenced nutritional choices and resources, SCT will help us to understand how these nutritional concepts fit together for pregnant adolescents as they retrospectively reflect on their past nutrition needs during pregnancy.
Obtaining this basic survey data will provide the foundation to further develop nutritional intervention programs that target pregnant adolescents with a particular emphasis on the prevention of preterm delivery and low birth weight. Data will be analyzed using SPSS and will include basic measures of central tendency, standard deviation, and frequencies. Pearson’s r will be used to determine if correlations exist between nutritional measures and outcomes or perception of knowledge gained during pregnancy. Data collection will continue for up to 1 year or until 100 participants are obtained.
Findings/Conclusions/Implications: Data collection is in process.
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