Because this was a qualitative study, we do not know if our
results are representative of the entire population of prenatal
care providers. In particular, our sampling method is likely to
have selected participants who are more interested in weight
and nutrition counseling compared with their colleagues:
most of our subjects told us that their interest in the topic was
why they chose to participate. It is likely that the providers
who declined our invitation do less counseling than those we
studied. However, even among this group of highly motivated
and interested clinicians, we identified substantial
barriers to the provision of effective weight and nutrition
counseling.