RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the study was to develop a series of education materials as a card news format to provide nutrition information for pregnant and lactating women. METHODS: The materials were developed in seven steps. As a first step, the needs of pregnant and lactating women were assessed by reviewing scientific papers and existing education materials, and by interviewing a focus group. The second step was to construct main categories and the topics of information. In step 3, a draft of the contents in each topic was developed based on the scientific evidence. In step 4, a draft of card news was created by editors and designers by editing the text and embedding images in the card news. In step 5, the text, images and sequences were reviewed to improve readability by the members of the project team and nutrition experts. In step 6, parts of the text or images or the sequences of the card news were revised based on the reviews. In step 7, the card news were finalized and released online to the public. RESULTS: A series of 26 card news for pregnant and lactating women were developed. The series covered five categories such as nutrition management, healthy food choices, food safety, favorites to avoid, nutrition management in special conditions for pregnant and lactating women. The satisfaction of 7 topics of the card news was evaluated by 140 pregnant women, and more than 70% of the women were satisfied with the materials. CONCLUSIONS: The card news format materials developed in this study are innovative nutrition education tools, and can be downloaded on the homepage of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Those materials can be easily shared in social media by nutrition educators or by pregnant and lactating women to use.