A formative evaluation in maternal and child health practice: the Partners for Life Nutrition Education Program for pregnant women.

Objectives: This paper describes the formative evaluation of the Partners For Life Program that was developed to change dietary behavior of low income pregnant women in the Mississippi Delta region.

Methods: A diverse group of nutrition/health professionals, adapted the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program's (EFNEP) methodology for pregnant patients in the local Women, Infants, and Children program who were receiving maternity care at the county health department. Formative evaluation activities included gathering data to determine 1) whether a new nutrition curriculum, modeled after EFNEP could be created, 2) whether peer educators could be recruited and trained to deliver the intervention, 3) whether pregnant women could be recruited to participate in the new program, 4) whether a pilot test of the new intervention would produce short-term impact in nutrition knowledge and dietary behavior, and 5) reactions of pregnant women on the usability of the new program.

The discrepancy between self-reported smoking status and urine continine levels among women enrolled in prenatal care at four publicly funded clinical sites.

The discrepancy between self-reported smoking behavior and actual urine cotinine values among prenatal patients at four municipally operated clinical sites was examined. Face-to-face interview and birth certificate information about smoking behavior during pregnancy was compared with laboratory urine cotinine values for 74 patients. Almost three of every four (73%) self-reported nonsmokers had continine values greater than 80 ng/mL; one-half (48%) had values exceeding 100 ng/mL.