Pregnant Medicaid Clients Eligible for Nutrition Counseling

In 2008 almost forty percent of pregnant Utah women were overweight or obese prior to pregnancy and half of pregnant women gained excessive weight during their pregnancy. Research has shown that entering pregnancy at an unhealthy weight and having unhealthy weight gain can poorly affect a woman’s pregnancy and offspring. Nutritional counseling can be an important tool for helping women with healthy pregnancy weight gain, achieve better nutrition during pregnancy, and help with postpartum weight loss.

In Utah, women enrolled in prenatal Medicaid are eligible for up to seven hours of counseling with a registered dietician during their pregnancy and postpartum. Providers can refer their pregnant patient who is nutritionally high risk to a registered dietician for this counseling.

Who is considered nutritionally at risk? The Utah Women Infants and Children (WIC) program includes a wide array of conditions including maternal underweight, overweight, or obese, and high or low maternal weight gain. We encourage providers to assess their clients and refer patients in need of counseling to a registered dietician.

Below is a list of registered dieticians who accept Medicaid in your area and have requested their names be included on this list:

List last updated on 7/14/2008