LAUSR

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to develop and validate a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for pregnant women to identify those who are at risk for possible deficiencies in the key nutrients for pregnancy. METHODS Pregnant women 18 to 39 y of age who availed themselves of perinatal services in community health centers in Makati City, Philippines were screened for the study. Five hundred eligible participants were asked to complete three 24-h food recalls for the development of the FFQ. A different set of participants with a total number of 100 were recruited for the validation of the questionnaire, which involved the use of the 3-d food record as the reference tool. The validity of the nutrient intakes obtained from the FFQ were measured against the values from the 3-d food record using Pearson's correlation coefficients and Bland-Altman plots. RESULTS Significant correlations at P ≤ 0.05 were seen for energy, fat, riboflavin, cobalamin, and calcium. Pearson's correlation coefficients ranged from 0.016 to 0.32 for energy and nutrients. CONCLUSIONS Acceptable agreements were seen for most of the nutrients. Possible deficiencies for key nutrients during pregnancy can be detected by the developed FFQ for Filipino pregnant women living in low-income urban communities with similar profiles.