Beatriz Della Líbera¹, Mirian Ribeiro Baião², Denise Cavalcante de Barros³, Marta Maria Antonieta de Souza Santos², Roberta Gabriela Araújo³, Cláudia Saunders⁴

The aim of the study was to assess the impact of a prenatal nutritional care programme on perinatal outcome in the context of primary health care. That’s a non-randomised controlled clinical trial developed in a care unit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 284 pregnant women were allocated into one of two groups: an intervention group (IG; n = 122), comprising pregnant women who received the intervention of nutritional care through collective consultations with a nutritionist, and a control group (CG, n = 162) consisting of pregnant women who did not receive the intervention. There was a higher proportion of pregnancy complications (p=0.000) and abnormal total gestational weight gain (p=0.031) in the CG. In the final model, it was found that belonging to the CG (adjusted OR=4.721; CI 95%=1.009-22.090) and living with four or more people in the household (adjusted OR=2.692; CI 95%=1.021-7.101) were predictors of pregnancy complications, while belonging to the CG (adjusted OR=2.354; CI 95%=1.063-5.213) and starting prenatal care after 16 weeks (adjusted OR =8.509; CI 95%=1.023-70.784) were determinants of abnormal pregnancy weight gain. The findings reinforce that the prenatal nutritional care programme contributed to improving the health of pregnant women.

pregnancy, nutrition programmes, prenatal nutrition, primary health care, intervention studies, food and nutrition education