Using Mental Imagination to Prevent Excessive Gestational Weight Gain in Overweight and Obese Pregnant Women

Inclusion Criteria

• Participants must be pregnant women ≤ 13 week-gestation with a single fetus as assessed by ultrasound.
• Participants must also have self-reported pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) of 25.0-45.0 kg/m2 and height (height and weight to compute body mass index).
• Ability to read and speak English,
• Age of 18-45 years,
• Access to a working smart phone with unlimited text messaging,
• Access to internet,
• Receipt of prenatal care from our collaborating clinics and plan to deliver the baby at The Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center,
• Resident of Franklin Count,
• Committed to the 20-week intervention.

Exclusion Criteria

• Self-reported history of ≥ 3 miscarriages,
• Planned termination of the pregnancy,
• Diagnosed hypertension and/or type 1 or 2 diabetes,
• History of or current diagnosis of an eating disorder,
• Serious current physical disease (e.g., renal disease or cancer),
• Past bariatric surgery,
• Current or history of substance abuse in the past 6 months,
• Current treatment for a serious psychological disorder (e.g., schizophrenia and bipolar disorder),
• Contraindications to walking,
• Consented women will become not eligible to participate in the study if they are not randomized by 16-week 6 days gestation. This is because the study intervention starts ≤ 17 weeks gestation.
• Women will become not ineligible for participation if they did not complete the baseline data.