Dietary Habits in Early Pregnancy in a Multi-Ethnic Population: Results from the PROMOTE Cohort Study

A total of 459 participants were recruited (<i>n</i> = 459), including 416 with GDM data available, at the conclusion of the first 2 years of recruitment. No participants met national dietary guideline recommendations. Fifty-six participants (<i>n</i> = 56, 13%) met a pragmatic composite standard of favourable diet, defined as two servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit per day, with a maximum of one discretionary serving per day. Over half the participants (<i>n</i> = 215, 51%) reported an adequate daily fruit intake. In total, 7 participants ate at least five servings of vegetables per day (<i>n</i> = 7, 1.7%), 61 participants (14.7%) ate three or more servings of vegetables per day and 212 (51.2%) participants reported one discretionary item per day. The data suggest that few women meet dietary recommendations in pregnancy. The association between dietary habits and GDM was unable to be assessed. The study was underpowered to detect an association due to the highly skewed distribution of dietary patterns in our population. <b>Conclusions:</b> The uptake of dietary recommendations was very low in our sample. This represents a major population health concern. Multi-level approaches are urgently needed to address poor dietary habits in pregnancy.