Sources of nutrition information for Indonesian women during pregnancy: how is information sought and provided?

Objective: Adequate and appropriate nutrition education is expected to contribute towards preventing risk of child stunting and maternal overweight/obesity. Understanding women’s information-seeking behaviours is an important key step for health professionals and departments of health in order to improve the development of optimal and targeted nutrition education during pregnancy. This study investigated the experience of Indonesian women in seeking and receiving nutritional information during pregnancy and its relationship to women’s socio-demographic and pregnancy characteristics. Design: An online cross-sectional study. Setting: Malang City, Indonesia. Participants: Women who had given birth within the past 2 years (n 335). Results: All women in this study sought or received food and nutrition information from multiple sources, including social and health professional contacts and media sources. The women frequently discussed nutrition issues with their family, particularly their husband (98·2 %) and mother or mother-in-law (91·6 %). This study identified four groups of sources based on women’s search habits. Women from high socio-economic strata were more likely to discuss food and nutrition issues or received nutrition information from obstetricians, their family or online sources (adjusted R 2 = 26·3 %). Women from low socio-economic strata were more likely to receive nutrition information from midwives, health volunteers or Maternal and Child Health books (adjusted R 2 = 14·5 %). Conclusions: A variety of nutrition information sources needs to be provided for women from different socio-economic strata. Involvement of family members in antenatal nutrition education may improve the communication and effectiveness of young mothers’ dietary and nutrition education.