Real-world survey of eating attitudes and spending behaviors related to healthy foods/supplements in women seeking to become pregnant.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Since 2022, fertility treatments have been partially covered by insurance in Japan. Women who wish to become pregnant may explore various means of conception as fertility treatments have shown low success rates. Therefore, we aimed to clarify the state of knowledge, behavior, and attitudes toward health foods among women who are actively trying to become pregnant.

METHODS

A web-based research company surveyed the eating attitudes and behaviors towards healthy foods of 900 women seeking to become pregnant. Regression analysis for the total amount spent on pregnancy was conducted, with "amount spent on actions undertaken to conceive" as the dependent variable. Multiple regression analysis on actions undertaken to conceive was performed using age, family income, body mass index, duration of hospital visits, duration of actions undertaken to conceive, cumulative amount incurred to conceive, awareness of dietary guidelines, adherence to dietary practices, number of types of health foods and supplements, whether participants considered consumption of nutritious foods and supplements to be important, and cumulative amount spent on healthy foods and supplements. The effect size for the Chi-square test was determined with Cramer's coefficient of association.

RESULTS

Increasing age was associated with a longer time to conceive, longer hospital visits, higher conception costs (including fertility treatment), and a higher intake of healthy food products. The number of healthy food types had the greatest impact on the cost incurred to conceive. Folic acid was the most commonly consumed healthy food, followed by iron and calcium.

CONCLUSIONS

This study clarified the real-world situation regarding healthy foods for women seeking pregnancy in Japan. The information necessary for pregnant women to select safe healthy foods was clarified, which may lead to the establishment of risk-communication measures to ensure safety.