Improving Maternal and Infant Nutrition: A Framework for Action

Chapter 6: Research, Monitoring and Evaluation6.1 The Framework endorses the research recommendations of NICE PublicHealth Guidance 11 which relates to pregnant women, those who are planning tobecome pregnant, mothers and other carers of children aged up to five years, and isparticularly aimed at those on a low income or from a disadvantaged group. TheNICE research recommendations can be found in Appendix 5.6.2 In addition to the NICE recommendations, there are a number of areas ofparticular relevance to Scotland.Research Commissioners and funders should fund research that seeks toidentify:• The attitudes, values and beliefs of women in Scotland to maternal and infantnutrition, before, during and after pregnancy in order to identify the drivers ofchange and barriers to change.Practice evaluation should be carried out to identify the most effective waysto:• Reduce social inequalities in the initiation and duration of breastfeeding, andexclusive breastfeeding;• Improve infant feeding practices including timely and healthy complementaryfeeding;• Improve maternal diet, particularly to increase fruit and vegetable and oily fishconsumption, and reduce the risk of obesity;• Increase uptake of vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy, whilebreastfeeding and in infants and young children;• Increase uptake of folic acid supplementation prior to pregnancy and for thefirst 12 weeks of pregnancy.Research commissioners, funders of large scale surveys, managers of largescale surveys and managers of routinely collected data should:• Continue to use and improve routinely collected data (ISD Scotland data) andregular surveys carried out in Scotland e.g. Scottish Health Survey, InfantFeeding Survey, Growing up in Scotland study, to monitor progress of theFramework.6.3 Particular attention should be paid to ensuring that the most relevant andhelpful data is provided for monitoring purposes:• Identify and address gaps where no data is available;• Improve questions and questionnaires as appropriate;• Make full use of existing surveys e.g. by boosting UK surveys (e.g. NationalDiet and Nutrition Survey and the new UK Diet and Nutrition Survey of Infantand Young Children) and carrying out secondary analysis (including datalinking) of existing surveys to fill gaps in the evidence;