Dietary Status And Nutrition KAP Analysis Of Pregnant Women In Zhengzhou

ObjectivesTo investigate the dietary and nutritional status of pregnant women, to find out the status of their nutritional knowledge, attitude and diet-related practice (KAP) and to explore the possible impact factors that aimed to provide scientific measures against the occurrence of birth defects and scientific evidences for targeted implementation of nutritional education and intervention programs for pregnant women in the future. Through the intervention, more pregnant women will be able to keep balanced diet and improve their health condition during pregnancy by rational nutrition.MethodsThe First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University was chosen as the investigation site. From July 2009 to December 2009,247 women in the third trimester of pregnancy who attended predelivery check in the site were randomly selected as the subjects. Dietary survey and physical examination of pregnant women were conducted. Their blood samples were collected for nutrient analyses. Predesigned questionnaires were filled by the investigators. The database was established using Epidata3.1. Frequency description, t test, chi-square test, one-way ANOVA, linear correlation analysis of maternal nutritional KAP and its impact factors, generalized linear regression analysis and logistic regression analysis were conducted by using SPSS 12.0 statistical software package. The significant level wasα=0.05.Results1. The diet intakes of pregnant women were in diverse species, but low in intakes of some food. According to the Balanced Diet Pagoda of Chinese Residents, the intakes of vegetables and seafood were inadequate. Diary products and seafood intakes of pregnant women in the rural area were far less than those in urban areas, while their cereal products and potato intakes were much more than the later group (P<0.05). 2. Compared with Chinese DRIs (2000), their average levels of energy and most the nutrient intakes were low, only vitamin E and phosphorus intakes reached to 80% of the DRIs. About 81.80% of the subjects took nutrient supplements, of which the folate supplement accounted for the largest proportion, followed by calcium supplement. In addition, the number of subjects taking folic acid and vitamins were significantly higher in urban areas than those in rural areas.3. More than 70% of pregnant women had normal BMI value and about 23.9% of them were underweight before pregnancy. The BMI value was not significantly different between urban and rural pregnant women (P>0.05).4. The serum calcium and iron levels of the subjects were low. They were significantly lower in rural areas than those in urban areas (P<0.05). Furthermore, the anemia prevalence of the subjects was 40.1%, of which the non-employed ones accounted for a large proportion. The subjects with high quality food consumption showed lower incidence of anemia (P<0.05).5. The score of attitude toward nutrition was high in the subjects, but the scores of nutrition knowledge and practice were low. The KAP score were significantly lower in rural areas than those in urban areas (P<0.05).6. There were significant correlation among pregnant women nutritional KAP (P<0.05). Many factors could improve maternal KAP score, such as living in the city, having high quality food consumption, pregnant women and their spouses engaging in teaching, medicare job and high-technology work (P<0.05). Besides, some factors such as having a higher KAP score and engaging in enterprise management, also helped to increase diary intake of pregnant women (P<0.05).ConclusionsIn Zhengzhou City, the food variety consumed by the pregnant women was plenty, but the quantity of the food intakes was inadequate. Especially the diary products intakes were limited for the pregnant women in rural areas. The pregnant women with inadequate nutrient intakes accounted for a large proportion and their intakes of protein and iron were significantly insufficient. Pregnant women generally lacked the nutritional knowledge, but had a positive attitude toward it. It was necessary to carry out effective nutritional education in order to increase the nutritional knowledge of pregnant women in Zhengzhou and to help them develop good health practice, prompt them to take balanced diet and rational nutrition, maintain and improve their health during pregnancy.