The Development of Baby Feed: A Web Application for Health Professionals and Parents to Improve Infant Diets

Abstract

ObjectivesTo develop the web application “Baby Feed” that can: 1) Quickly and easily evaluate infant diets using a validated Infant Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) developed by our group. 2) Provide automatic results online to clinicians on nutrients and foods/beverages consumed above or below the recommended levels. 3) Provide current diet recommendations by infant’s age for clinicians to discuss with parents during routine Well-Child Visits. 4) Provide parents online access to the infant diet recommendations and a short tracking question component, with the goal of improving the infant’s diet. This could translate into healthy weight gain during infancy and prevent early childhood obesity. MethodsIn collaboration with the computer science department, our group previously converted the 55-item Infant FFQ and nutrient/food database from paper format to web portals in Baby Feed. The web portals were built in MongoDB and deployed on Microsoft Azure. Next, a secure login system with usernames and passwords was created that directs users to their assigned portal: administrative, parental, or clinician. Tabs were created in the portals that show FFQ results, diet recommendations, and tracking history. The short tracking questions were created for parents to select whether their infant had consumed more, equal, or less than the recommended amounts of the 10 food groups during the past week. ResultsBaby Feed was developed where: (1) Parents can complete the Infant FFQ online. (2) Clinicians can view the automatic results, which are available in nutrients and foods/beverages color-coded to highlight those consumed above or below the recommended levels. (3) Diet recommendations are presented online in a friendly and graphic way that are easy to follow in tablespoons, cups, and ounces per day. (4) The short tracking questions can help parents at home make goals and stayed engaged in between Well-Child Visits. This use of technology can allow parents at their convenience to access knowledge in Baby Feed and develop skills in infant feeding. ConclusionsThe development of Baby Feed was successful, and the web application is ready to be pilot tested. Baby Feed could be used by health professionals and parents during routine Well-Child Visits as a tool to improve the diet quality in infants and prevent early childhood obesity. Funding SourcesCaplan Foundation for Early Childhood