Nutritional Deficiency as a Major Risk Factor for Anemia in Young Primigravida Women

Abstract

Objective: To determine the nutritional deficiency as a major risk factor for anemia in young primigravids presented at gynae and obstetrics out patient’s department at BMC/ Jamshoro.

Methodology: This descriptive cross-sectional study was done at gynae and obstetrics out patients department at BMC/ Jamshoro, during a period of six months from March 2019 to September 2019. All the pregnant anemic primigravid young women aged 18 to 35 years were included. Women were interviewed regarding their demographic information including socioeconomic status and quality of diet. A 5ml blood sample was taken to assess the fresh hemoglobin level. All the information was documented using self-structured questioner based proforma. SPSS version 26 used to the data analysis.

Results: A total of 401 pregnant women were studied; their mean age of the study subjects was 22.51+2.93 years, mean gestational age was 32.80+4.85 weeks, mean marriage duration was 1.92+0.91 years, while average hemoglobin was 8.68+1.28 mg/dl. Out of all 20.8% women had dyspnea and 25.8% had other morbidities. Most women 86.0% visited 2nd time in OPD and majority of the 75.0% had poor socioeconomic status. 53.0% women were living in joint family and unfortunately 22.5% women addictive habits like betel nuts and Multani mitti etc. Most of the women 56.0% had history inadequate diet, 32.0% had history of satisfactory diet, while only 11.5% women had history of adequate diet. Severity of anemia was significantly linked to the poor SES and addictive habits (p =>0.05).

Conclusion: Inadequate nutritional status has been observed to the major risk factor for anemia during pregnancy in young primigravids. Poor SES and the addictive habits seems to be the causative factors of insufficient dietary intake.