KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF PREGNANT WOMEN TOWARDS MATERNAL DIETARY PRACTICES DURING PREGNANCY

1.1 Introduction

The dietary practices of women during pregnancy may be based on the accessibility and availability of nutritional reserves, which include stores of some special micronutrients like iron and calcium, which is considered as a building block of the maternal body, starting from the consumption of diets containing these important micronutrients. Based on this scenario, keeping good dietary practice before conception is substantial for safeguarding satisfactory nutritional status during pregnancy. Underweight women and those who have shortages in some micronutrients depend on “catch-up” by improving their diet once they are pregnant and additional nutrition is demanded because of the growing baby (Gebreyesus et al., 2015).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Dietary practices have a major role in determining the continuing health status of both mother and the growing fetus. Suboptimal dietary practices of pregnant women have outwardly contributed to increased rates of stillbirths, premature birth, low birth weight, and maternal and prenatal death (Ademuyiwa et al., 2013). Nutrition, throughout the life of human beings, has a major effect on health. This is special for pregnant women as good maternal nutrition is one of the crucial options to safeguard maternal and fetal welfare in both developed and developing countries. A mother’s nutritional status, from early conception to lactation periods, plays a vital role in defining the well- being of the mother and child.

Reduced maternal nutrition was shown to have an association with different negative health effects at birth, including intrauterine growth retardation, which significantly upsurges the risk of newborn deaths, Low Birth Weight (LBW), (PTB), and stunting (Nachvak et al., 2017). Various studies have demonstrated that an adequate nutritional intake during pregnancy has a special role in fetal growth and improved nutritional status of a mother (Kennedy et al., 2009). To guarantee adequate nutrient consumption, dietary variation is one of the best recommended strategies, predominantly among pregnant women, since their nutritional demand is greater than before (WHO, 2015).The prevalence of poor dietary practice varies from place to place. About 27.1% of Senegalese women reported poor dietary practice, while 22% of them were undernourished (Anderson et al., 2010). Another study showed that 54.8% of women in northern Ethiopia had poor dietary practice, of whom 19.5% were undernourished (Diddana, 2019).

A significant level of several deficiencies of micronutrients, underweight, early stunting, and wasting are key malnutrition correlated features suggesting the degree and seriousness of nutritional difficulties in the country. Again the encumbrance of adverse perinatal outcomes such as low birth weight, preterm, and stillbirth are also common conditions in Ethiopia (WHO, 2016). Unfortunately, despite the gaps explained above and the significance of dietary practices being well recognized in Ethiopia, suboptimal practices have still been continued. The data about pregnant mothers’ dietary practice and nutritional status during pregnancy is important for deciding control strategies and is used as significant indicators of major public health since the consequences are intergenerational and have cyclic effects on both mother and fetus. Current findings recommend that adequate nutrition reduces the risk of contracting chronic medical illnesses later in life. As physiology demands, during pregnancy and breast-feeding, the suggested intake of different nutrition in the diet should increase (Bhutta et al., 2013).

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Knowledge and Attitude of Pregnant Women towards Maternal Dietary Practices during Pregnancy.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that food and nutrition problems are often difficult to solve because of the multitude of factors in their aetiology and maintenance. Under-nutrition is a result of inadequate food intake and disease. A child who consumes a good diet but who frequently suffers from diarrhoea or fever most likely becomes undernourished. Thus, disease is the immediate causes of under-nutrition (UNICEF, 1998). Poor diet and disease, in turn, are caused by food insecurity, as well as inadequate maternal and child health care. The distant causes are social structures and institutions, political systems and ideology, economic distribution, and potential resources (UNICEF, 1998).

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to examine the Knowledge and Attitude of Pregnant Women towards Maternal Dietary Practices during Pregnancy. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To assess the prevalence of both sub-optimal dietary practices and nutritional status and their associated factors;
2. To investigate the factors affecting maternal dietary practice and nutritional status among Pregnant Women;
3. To determine the relationship between maternal dietary practice and the nutritional status of Pregnant Women; and
4. To assess pregnant women’s nutrition knowledge and attitudes, as well as the factors affecting their maternal dietary practices.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Is there any significant relationship between maternal dietary practice and the nutritional status of Pregnant Women?
• Are there factors affecting pregnant women’s dietary practices in the study area?
• What are the factors affecting maternal dietary practice and nutritional status among Pregnant Women?
• What is the prevalence of both sub-optimal dietary practices and nutritional status and their associated factors?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There is no significant relationship between maternal dietary practice and the nutritional status of Pregnant Women
• H1: There is a significant relationship between maternal dietary practice and the nutritional status of Pregnant Women

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There are no significant factors affecting pregnant women’s dietary practices in the area under study
• H1: There are significant factors affecting pregnant women’s dietary practices in the area under study

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1.7 Significance of Study

Food is important for humans as part of social life and especially because it contains nutrients needed by humans. Unfortunately, people are not always able to access food, for various political, economic and geographic reasons. ANC attendance, history of illness, dietary diversity, poor nutritional knowledge, poor dietary practice and poorly perceived self-efficacy were significantly associated with under-nutrition.

This study will be of immense benefit to food technologist, caterers, and other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The study focuses on the Knowledge and Attitude of Pregnant Women towards Maternal Dietary Practices during Pregnancy.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

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1.10 Definition of Terms

The following terms are operationally defined as used in this study;

Dietary Supplement: These are product intended to alternate diet. They contain vitamins, minerals, plant material. They can be found in pill, capsule, tablet or liquid form and are used to supplement (add to) the diet, but they are not be considered a substitute for food.