Healthy4Baby: Preventing Postpartum Weight Retention Among Low-Income, Black Women

Black women are in particular need for obesity prevention and treatment. Targeting the childbearing period has the potential to slow the accumulation of weight gain among this high risk group. Previous interventions to prevent postpartum weight retention among Blacks are sparse and limited by poor intervention adherence, high attrition, and failure to include pregnancy in the study design. The proposed research aims to overcome these shortcomings by developing an intervention that 1) focuses solely on Black women, 2) incorporates Black mothers' information needs, values, and social context, 3) uses technology to facilitate participant engagement, and 4) includes both the pregnancy and postpartum periods.