Nutrition Education Curriculum Teaching New Parents About Complementary Foods with Traditional and Online Environments

Research has shown that there is a gap between new parent’s knowledge of pediatric feeding recommendations and behavior when introducing solid foods to their infants. This pilot study investigated the effectiveness of an online nutrition education intervention, compared to an in-person intervention, on the behavioral intentions and self-efficacy of new parents who had not started the solid food introduction process. A course, “Learning to Feed”, was developed using pediatric infant feeding guidelines and translated to an online format. Online participants (n = 10) and in-person participants (n = 9) were new parents recruited through a pediatric clinic and social media. Participants filled out a pre- and post-survey which measured their behavioral intentions and confidence with breastfeeding and introducing solid foods, as well as the online participant’s self-efficacy with completing an online course. For the measures of breastfeeding intention, breastfeeding confidence, and solid food introduction confidence, there were no significant changes from pre- to post-survey between the online and in-person participants. The online participants showed a significantly greater change in intentions to introduce solid foods according to guidelines for timing, variety, and texture (p = 0.043). Online participants showed significant improvement in scores for breastfeeding intention (0.041), solid food introduction intention (0.017), and solid food introduction confidence (0.043). A majority of online participants found the site easy to use and engaging