Overview of Maternal and Child Nutrition: A Cross-Disciplinary Update
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (29 February 2024) | Viewed by 2387
Special Issue Editor
2. Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Granada, Campus de la Salud, Avda, de la Investigación 11, 18016 Granada, Spain
Interests: nutritional intervention and lifestyles; maternal and child health; social exclusion; patient safety; drug addiction; preventive medicine
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Contemporary environmental changes and a diversity of socio-cultural contexts shift maternal nutrition and lifestyles that impact women and offspring health. In the short term, nutritional deficiencies increase the risk of maternal and fetal adverse outcomes, such as pre-eclampsia, low birthweight, small for gestational age or preterm birth. In the long term, low-quality maternal nutrition, as well as preconception and prenatal exposure to toxic environmental chemicals, can induce epigenetic changes that alter fetal programming with impact on later offspring health and future generations. The exponential increase of child obesity and its higher risk of non-communicable co-morbidities (mostly diabetes and cardiovascular disease) has become a major public health challenge. Evidence accrued on the long-term effects of maternal diet, early nutrition, and lifestyle on later offspring health status have oriented preventive strategies, from developmental programming to community-based participatory research in school, to target obesity epidemics in children. New health strategies addressing maternal and child nutrition are claimed, and high-quality research based on healthy lifestyles is urgently needed. Furthermore, epidemiological and cross-disciplinary research is mandatory to identify sociodemographic and cultural predictors of low-quality maternal diet that shape health disparities in women and children, so that effective public health strategies will be tailored and the most vulnerable communities will be given priority when designing and implementing health policies. This Special Issue is aimed at providing an overview of current advances on nutritional interventions and an updated synthesis of the evidence to shed light on promising high-health-impact orientations. Therefore, reviews, meta-analyses, umbrella reviews, and original research articles using quantitative and qualitative methods are welcome. Suggested topics include but are not restricted to: effects on maternal, fetal, newborn and child health outcomes; quality of diet; diet patterns or nutrient combinations; nutritional interventions based on supplements; dietary balance during pregnancy; deprivation index; women’s health and lifestyles discourses; and risk perceptions and attitudes towards nutrition during pregnancy.
Dr. Paloma Massó
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- maternal dietary interventions
- nutritional intake
- breastfeeding
- pre-eclampsia
- small for gestational age
- low birthweight
- preterm birth
- stillbirth
- maternal mortality
- quality of life
- epigenetic
- environmental exposure
- overweight
- obesity
- child obesity
- deprivation index
- social inequities
- systematic review
- meta-analysis
- umbrella review
- qualitative research
- risk perceptions
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