Assessment of Basic Nutritional Status and Awareness to Good Food Habits of Pregnant Women in a Semi Urban Indian Town- Kumbakonam urban Rural Epidemiological Study- KURES -3

Suchitra M.R¹, Shanthi T. S², Parthasarathy S. ³

¹Department of Chemistry and Biosciences, SASTRA Deemed to be University, Kumbakonam India.

²Consultant Obstetrician KRG Nursing Home and ST Hospital, Kumbakonam India.

³Department of Anaesthesiology, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, Sribalajividyapeeth Pondicherry India.

Corresponding Author Email: dietviji@yahoo.com

Nutritional needs increase in pregnant women which should be consciously considered during pregnancy. But there are a lot of deficiencies in their food intake especially among our population. With an aim to identify the prevalent nutrition and awareness about dietary needs, this cross-sectional study was conducted in 265 pregnant patients. It was found the prevalence of anaemia was 46.8%. The mean haemoglobin was 9.75gm/dl. The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus was 3.8%. while pregnancy induced hypertension was 4.9%.The awareness about adequate nutrition in a different new scale named suchitra scale was recorded and the dietary pattern was unsatisfactory in our study. Eighty percent of women did not take proper diet according to this scale. There is an urgent need for more serious community awareness programs to counter this growing health menace. Even though such studies are available, this is the first possible report of a nutritional problem in a peripheral private hospital of South India.

Pregnancy; Nutrition; Anaemia; Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

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