Effect of Traditional Food Supplementation During Pregnancy on Maternal Weight Gain and Birthweight

Abstract

The effects of supplementary traditional food on pregnant women were investigated in a clinical trial in Islamshahr, a suburban area 35 km southwest of Tehran. The study comprised 53 healthy mothers who were neither addicts nor on medication and were free from genetic disorders. The pregnant mothers' health was evaluated by their weight gain, that of lactating mothers by breast milk adequacy, and that of newborns by their weight at birth. The experimental group received traditional food (rice-milk porridge, lentils, pottage, cheese, yogurt, eggs, and milk with bread), supplying an extra 400 kcal energy and 15 g protein from the fourth month of pregnancy until childbirth. All subjects were weighed monthly. To ascertain breast milk sufficiency, the duration of exclusive breastfeeding and the growth trend of infants were surveyed. The study showed the weight gain in the experimental and control groups to be 11.0 +/- 2.9 and 8.5 +/- 3 kg respectively; the difference was 29.4% and statistically significant (p < 0.02). The confounding variables (energy and protein intake, age, height, BMI, age at first pregnancy, parity, last pregnancy spacing, number of children, number of miscarriages, duration of residence in the area, family size, education, housing, occupation of the mother or her husband) did not reveal any significant differences. Maternal weight gain was higher in the experimental compared to the control group. Birth weights in experimental and control groups were 3.33 +/- 0.4 and 3.08 +/- 0.3 kg, respectively. This difference, which amounts to 8.1%, was statistically significant (p < 0.05). While the two groups of newborns had equal breastfeeding duration, heights and weights of newborns were significantly higher in the experimental group. This was also confirmed when compared to the NCHS figures.

Impact of Dietary Interventions during Pregnancy on Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Outcomes in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

“…On abstract screening, 61 articles were selected for full-text screening and, at the same time, eight articles were included through cross-referencing. Fifteen studies [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] were included for data extraction ( Figure S1). All included trials studied healthy pregnant women at varying gestational ages in LMIC settings.…”

“…Studies included both urban [26,28,32,35] and rural [21,[23][24][25]29,31,33,34] settings, with three studies not specifying their setting [22,27,30]. The characteristics of included studies are briefly mentioned in Table S3.…”

“…Eight studies on BEP supplementation were included (food supplementation in which proteins provided <25% energy) [21][22][23]25,28,30,32,33], which included pregnant women (Table S3). Three studies were conducted in Asia [21,30,32], three in Africa [22,23,33], one in Middle East [28], and one in South America [25]. Five were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) [21,22,28,32,33], and three were quasi-experimental studies [23,25,30].…”

“…Three studies were conducted in Asia [21,30,32], three in Africa [22,23,33], one in Middle East [28], and one in South America [25]. Five were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) [21,22,28,32,33], and three were quasi-experimental studies [23,25,30].…”

Maternal Nutrition and Birth Outcomes: Effect of Balanced Protein‐Energy Supplementation

“…The included studies were of variable quality with most of the studies conducted in the 1980s and 1990s; the most recent study was conducted in 2002 in Iran 37 . Methods of randomisation and allocation concealment were inadequate in most of the studies.…”