Dietary patterns among pregnant women in the SELMA study

Abstract

Background: Nutrition is important during pregnancy both for the health of the mother and fetal development. There are nutritional guidelines for pregnant women in order to get the nutrients that are needed for healthy pregnancy outcomes. Our objective was to identify dietary patterns among pregnant women. Methods: We used data from 1,770 pregnant women participating in the Swedish Environmental Longitudinal Mother and child Asthma and allergy (SELMA) study. Food intake was collected through a 30-day recall food-frequency questionnaire during 2nd trimester of pregnancy. Dietary intake was calculated to grams per day. We performed principal component (PC) analysis to identify different food patterns. Results: Overall, women were 31 years of age, of normal weight (BMI=25), a college degree or higher (65%), and were mainly non-smokers (95%). We found 11 principal components (PC) with eigenvalues above 1 explaining 61% of the dietary variation. PC1, representing 13% of the variance, showed a varied diet with higher positive loadings for meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, cakes, and sweets. PC2 (8% variance) had higher loadings on cakes and sweets and lower on vegetables, whereas PC3 (7% variance) had negative loadings on fish. The group in PC4 (6% variance) had a less varied diet with positive loadings on sweets and vegetables but negative loadings on dairy, cereals, meat and fish. Women in PC8 (4% variance) ate more dairy, meat and fish but no sweets, bread or cereals. These dietary patterns are currently being analyzed with a nutrition index based on nutritional guidelines and with prenatal exposure to endocrine disruptors (EDCs) in a mixture analysis. Conclusion: Results provide a depiction of women’s dietary patterns during mid-pregnancy. They will be further analyzed with prenatal nutrient intake and exposure to EDCs in order to get a better understanding of the relationship between food patterns, nutrition, and exposure to EDCs