Diet Screener in A Prospective Study on the Role of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure in SIDS and Stillbirth

Diet screener data is a brief food frequency questiionnaire that has been designed in collaboration with NutritionQuest, the official source of the Block Food Frequency Questionnaire. There are two versions of the diet screener and they have been designed to represent foods that are common to the general population in the Northern Plains and South Africa and will provide an estimate of usual consumption of several food groups and nutrients. Food items and serving sizes are site specific. Please see the appropriate diet screener based on study site (Diet Screener v1.0 2009-04-28_DEIDENT for Northern Plains; File3-SA-Diet Screener_Final_DEIDENT for South Africa). The diet screener was administered following the recruitment interview by study staff. Participants were asked about their typical eating habits in the 15 days before and 15 days after their last menstrual period. Overall diet quality will be assessed based on consumption of total fruit, total fruit juice, vegetables excluding potatoes and legumes, dark green and orange vegetables, potatoes including french fries, whole grains, saturated fat, meat, poultry, fish, dairy, legumes, and sugar/syrup added to foods/beverages during processing/preparation. If the diet screener cannot be completed at the recruitment visit, it will be completed at the next prenatal study visit.
Study Description
The Safe Passage Study was a large, prospective, multidisciplinary study designed to (1) investigate the association between prenatal alcohol exposure, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and stillbirth, and (2) determine the biological basis of the spectrum of phenotypic outcomes from exposure, as modified by environmental and genetic factors that increase the risk of stillbirth, SIDS, and in surviving children, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. The study enrolled pregnant people from the Northern Plains, US, and Cape Town, South Africa, areas known to be of high risk for maternal drinking during pregnancy. Research visits occurred during prenatal, delivery/newborn, and postnatal periods through 1 year post-delivery. The Safe Passage Study was the first multi-site study of SIDS and stillbirth to integrate prospectively collected exposure information with multidisciplinary biological information in the same maternal and fetal/infant dyad using a common protocol. Essential components of the study design and its success were close ties to the community and rigorous systems and processes to ensure compliance with the study protocol and procedures. Study participants included pregnant people and infants recruited from the Northern Plains, USA and South Africa, areas selected to ensure an adequate number of pregnant women with high alcohol exposure yielding poor outcomes, SIDS, stillbirth or FASD.