Background: Increase in fibre intake during pregnancy may reduce weight gain, glucose intolerance, dyslipidaemia, pre-eclampsia and constipation. Few studies have evaluated adequacy of fibre intake during pregnancy.
Objective: To assess, through an FFQ, the dietary fibre intake of pregnant women receiving prenatal care from general public practices and compare it with current guidelines.
Design and setting: Cross-sectional analyses of a pregnancy cohort study (ECCAGE-Study of Food Intake and Eating Behaviour in Pregnancy) conducted in eighteen general practices in southern Brazil, from June 2006 to April 2007.
Subjects: Five hundred and seventy-eight pregnant women with mean (SD) age of 24.9 (6.5) years and mean gestational age of 24.5 (5.8) weeks.
Results: The mean energy intake was 11 615 kJ/d (2776 kcal/d). The mean total fibre intake (30.2 g/d) was slightly above the recommended value of 28 g/d (P < 0.001), yet 50% (95% CI 46, 54) of the women failed to meet the recommendation. Whole-grain fibre constituted only 1% of total fibre intake in the cereal group. In adjusted Poisson regression analyses, not meeting the recommendation for fibre intake was associated with alcohol intake (prevalence ratio 1.29; 95% CI 1.11, 1.50) and absence of nutritional guidance (prevalence ratio 1.22; 95% CI 1.05, 1.42) during pregnancy.
Conclusions: About half of the pregnant women failed to meet the recommended fibre intake, especially those not reporting nutritional guidance during pregnancy. For most women, whole-grain cereal intake was absent or trivial. Taken together, our data indicate the need, at least in this setting, for greater nutritional education in prenatal care.