Effectiveness of a minimally processed food-based nutritional counselling intervention on weight gain in overweight pregnant women: a randomized controlled trial.

PURPOSE: This study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a nutritional counselling intervention based on encouraging the consumption of unprocessed and minimally processed foods, rather than ultra-processed products, and the practice of physical activities to prevent excessive gestational weight gain in overweight pregnant women. METHODS: This was a two-armed, parallel, randomized controlled trial conducted in primary health units of a Brazilian municipality from 2018 to 2021. Overweight, adult pregnant women (n = 350) were randomly assigned to control (CG) or intervention groups (IG). The intervention consisted of three individualized nutritional counselling sessions based on encouraging the consumption of unprocessed and minimally processed foods rather than ultra-processed products, following the NOVA food classification system, and the practice of physical activities. The primary outcome was the proportion of women whose weekly gestational weight gain (GWG) exceeded the Institute of Medicine guidelines. Adjusted logistic regression models were employed. RESULTS: Complete data on weight gain were available for 121 women of the IG and 139 of the CG. In modified intention-to-treat analysis, there was a lower chance of the IG women having excessive GWG [OR 0.56 (95% CI 0.32, 0.98), p = .04], when compared to the CG. No between-group differences were observed for the other maternal outcomes investigated. CONCLUSION: The present study was unprecedented in demonstrating that nutritional counselling based on the NOVA food classification system, together with encouraging the practice of physical activity, is effective in preventing excessive weight gain in overweight pregnant women. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registered on July 30th 2018 at Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials (RBR-2w9bhc).

Pro-inflammatory diet during pregnancy is associated with large-for-gestational-age infants.

A pro-inflammatory diet in pregnant women is associated with an increased risk of harmful maternal and fetal health outcomes. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between the maternal energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index (E-DII) and the classification of birth weight of newborns. We hypothesized that a maternal pro-inflammatory diet would be associated with a higher chance of inadequate birth weight infants. A prospective cohort study was conducted among 600 mother-infant pairs in Brazil. The E-DII was calculated through 24-hour dietary recalls on 2 occassions, using 36 of its 45 components. Secondary data on birth weight, sex of the newborns, and gestational age at birth were obtained. Adjusted logistic regression models were used to investigate the relationship between the maternal E-DII (in tertiles) and birth weight categories. The mothers' mean (standard deviation [SD]) age was 27 (5) years, 32.2% were overweight, and 21.5% had prepregnancy obesity. In total, 62 (10.3%) cases of small-for-gestational-age newborns and 79 (13.2%) of large-for-gestational-age (LGA) newborns were identified. The mean (SD) of the E-DII was 1.6 (1.5), ranging from -2.6 to 6.0. In adjusted logistic regression models, it was found that women classified in the third tertile of the E-DII had higher odds of having LGA infants (odds ratio, 2.07 [95% confidence interval, 1.07-4.02], P =.03), when compared with the women classified in the first tertile. A maternal pro-inflammatory diet was associated with a higher chance of LGA infants, reinforcing the relevance of the consumption of foods naturally rich in antioxidants during pregnancy.