Dietary Practices and Associated Factors Among Pregnant Women in Wondo Genet District, Southern Ethiopia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Diet is one of the prime determinants of health and nutritional status. An inadequate diet, poor in both quality and quantity, is one of the major reasons for high levels of malnutrition in women. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to assess dietary practices and to identify factors associated with sub-optimal dietary practices of pregnant women in Wondo Genet District, Southern Ethiopiain. A two-stage cluster sampling technique was used to select a representative sample of 153 pregnant women aged 19-49 years from three rural villages ("Kebeles"). About 43.8% of study participants commonly skipped lunch and 24.2% skipped breakfast. About 21% of the pregnant mothers restricted their food intake. Majority (75.2 %) of study participants did not take any additional meal during pregnancy. Factors like not growing enset, eating no legumes and no additional meal have a significant association with food restriction habit of the respondents. Taking no additional meal was significantly associated with family size, growing khat, not growing vegetables and fruits, and no consumption of white vegetables and roots. Skipping meal was significantly associated with family size and number of pregnancy. The dietary practice of the pregnant women in study area was suboptimal. Pregnant women in the study area suffered from suboptimal dietary practices such as taking no additional meal during pregnancy, skipping meals, food restriction and taking less diversified diet.

Determinants of Food Taboos in the Pregnant Women of the Awabel District, East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Regional State in Ethiopia

“…In this study, income was significantly associated with food taboo. Pregnant women who earned 650-1000 birr were 56% less likely to have food taboo compared to pregnant women who have <650-birr monthly income, which is in line with the study done in Wondo Genet [12], Bangladesh [13], and Ogan state of Nigeria [14]. As income increases, the avoidance of food taboos decreases.…”

“…Based on this study, banana has not been eaten by 107(35.7%) of pregnant women which is not comparable with the study conducted in Hydya Zone (8.6%). This discrepancy may be due to the study area, culture, and time difference [12].…”

Maternal dietary and nutritional characteristics as predictor of newborn birth weight in Jimma Town, Southwest Ethiopia, 2017

“…On the other hand, study showed that good dietary practice was found to be low (40.1%) in Gondar during pregnancy (Mekonnen et al, 2015). In addition energy and most of the nutrients intakes of pregnant mother in Wando Genet district is also reported to be lower than recommended for pregnant mother (Kuche et al, 2015). The inadequate dietary pattern in our study is however by far very high compared to the above studies.…”

“…This is because urban residents are tought to have better education, health information and access to health facilities for antenatal care which subsequently promotes birth weight (Kuche et al, 2015;Taddese et al, 2016). It was found that there is a positive association in multivariable linear regression analysis between (maternal MUAC, parity and wealth index) and birth weight after adjusting for dietary diversity score (DDS), age at first marriage and food insecurity.…”

Dietary Knowledge, Practices and Adequacy among Bedouin Pregnant Women

“…While others restrict their food intake during pregnancy for different reasons such as have smaller fetuses because smaller fetuses will carry a lower risk of delivery complications. (Kuche, D., Singh, P& ,.Moges, D. (2015) In the mid-west state of Nigeria, specifically in some parts of Ishan, Afemai, and Isoko Divisions pregnant women avoid snails. Whereas pregnant women of the Asaba Division are neither allowed to eat eggs nor drink milk.…”