Predictive factors for nutritional behavior among
pregnant women attending antenatal care clinic in 6th of October City
Doaa
A Nasrallah (1), Hanan S Ez-Elarab (2), Eman A Sultan (3), Mohamed Farouk Allam
(1)
1. Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
2. Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of
Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt and at Fakeeh College for Medical
Sciences, Jeddah, KSA.
3. National Nutrition Institute, Cairo, Egypt.
Journal
of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene 2020; 61: E186-E193
Background: Good maternal
nutrition during pregnancy is important to ensure health for both the mother
and the foetus. This study aimed to assess nutritional knowledge and behavior
among a group of
Egyptian pregnant women
in addition to
identify the factors influencing
both their nutritional knowledge and behavior.
Methods: This comparative
cross sectional study
included 300 pregnant women
attending the antenatal
care clinics in 6th of October
University private hospital
and El-Hussary primary health care (PHC) unit. The data was
collected through a modified nutritional survey that was translated from
Spanish to Arabic and revised by language experts for clarity.
Results: Almost all
of the women
attending the private
hospital were university educated
while about half
of the women
attending the PHC
unit were graduated
from technical education.
In general, the level of knowledge about food requirements of both groups
was satisfactory good; however,
neither of them
fulfilled the WHO
recommendations of food
intake during pregnancy
or the optimum number of meals per day. The mean of random blood glucose
was higher among the women attending the PHC unit; the BMI, mid arm
circumference and subcutaneous
fat were higher among
the same group
as well. In
regard to fulfilling
the WHO recommended servings per
day, only starch
and fat items
were fulfilled by both groups, whereas the other three items
(vegetables, fruits and dairy
products) were merely
included in the
diets of both groups.
Conclusions:
Healthy behavior among
pregnant women in
both group were influenced
by their educational
level, occupation as well as their pre-gestational BMI. Those
were the only three significant predictive factors, where women with higher
education showed an active lifestyle. In addition, women starting with normal
BMI before pregnancy had better healthy behaviours including the choice of
healthy diets
Keywords: Pregnancy, Nutrition, Life-style behavior, Eating habits, Antenatal care.
Journal
of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene 2020; 61: E186-E193
