Nutritional Awareness and Health Status of Pregnant Women as Influenced by Nutritional Education and Counselling

The present study entitled "Nutritional Awareness and Health Status of Pregnant Women as Influenced by Nutritional Education and Counselling" was carried out with the following objectives, to assess the nutritional status and dietary pattern of selected pregnant women, to study existing nutritional knowledge and awareness of selected pregnant women, to impart the nutrition education programme through developed nutrition education materials and to compare the nutritional awareness before and after the intervention programme. Nutritional status of pregnant women was assessed in terms of dietary assessment, anthropometric measurement and clinical assessment of signs and symptoms. The data collected by the pretested survey schedule and 24 hours dietary recall method from hospitals, clinic, nursing homes, and Primary health centres. A total of 250 pregnant women were selected from the hospitals of Allahabad. The respondents were personally interviewed by visiting the respective nursing home, primary health centres and hospitals. The anthropometric measurement of the respondent's i.e, height in cm and weight in kg were taken and BMI was also calculated. Out of 250 pregnant women 70.8 per cent of respondents had normal BMI before conceiving. Mean weight gain of respondents of second trimester were 4.29 kg and first trimester were 0.93 kg respectively in their present month. Average nutrient intake of the respondents found to be less with regard to protein, iron, calcium and folic acid as compared to RDA. The difference between the intake and RDA was significant for all the nutrients except carbohydrate in moderate women of second trimester. Out of 250 respondents 41.6 per cent of respondents were preferred type C dietary pattern (four meal pattern). 53.6 per cent of respondents were vegetarian. 66.8 per cent of respondents did not exercise regularly. 34.0 per cent of respondents had symptoms of morning sickness. 55.6 per cent of respondents were anaemic and 44.4 per cent of respondents had normal level of haemoglobin. There is significant impact of nutrition education on the nutritional awareness of the respondents. Nutritional knowledge of the respondents after intervention was significantly increased.