Empowering postpartum parents to improve their diet quality

The postpartum period brings about significant physiological, psychological, and social changes. Yet, dietary support for parents, particularly fathers, remains limited and is often overlooked. This paper outlines preconditions for an empowerment-based strategy to improve diet quality among parents during the first year postpartum in the Netherlands. The project consisted of four interconnected substudies, comprising 61 interviews with 34 healthcare professionals (HCPs) and 35 parents or postpartum women. Each substudy was conducted and analyzed independently, after which the findings were synthesized during three collaborative analytical sessions among the authors. The results revealed three overarching themes: 1) the current healthcare system predominantly focuses on child health rather than parental nutrition, with reactive rather than preventive approaches; 2) while parents are motivated to maintain healthy dietary habits, they face substantial barriers, including time constraints, competing priorities, and sleep deprivation; and 3) effective interventions require continuity of care from pregnancy through the postpartum period, with group-based approaches such as CenteringParenting showing particular promise. A family-centered approach that includes both parents and addresses nutrition in phases emerged as a central recommendation to improve their dietary quality throughout the postpartum period. Initially, this means strengthening the social environment to assist parents with nutrition, followed by more direct support from HCPs as the family routine stabilizes.