Abstract:
Nutrition is a critical part of health and development. Pregnancy is a constructive metabolic process and women’s normal nutritional requirement increases during pregnancy to meet the needs of growing fetus and the maternal tissues associated with pregnancy. If pregnant mothers know the need for good nutrition during pregnancy and practice that properly, we can expect good pregnancy outcomes, which has been proved in many studies in the past.The aim of the current study was to assess the knowledge of maternal nutrition & dietary practices among pregnant mothers attending selected antenatal clinics in Chenkalady MOH area, Batticaloa.The community-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in selected antenatal clinics (ANC) of the MOH area, Chenkalady. A structured interviewer-administered questionnaire (IAQ) was used to collect the data. Statistical Package of Social Science 25 was used for entering, analyzing, and interpreting the data. Descriptive analysis was employed in the calculation of frequency and percentage. The association between socio-demographic factors and nutritional knowledge of pregnant mothers and the association between nutritional knowledge dietary practices of pregnant mothers were assessed through the Chi-square test. Most of the participants (63.9%) had moderate level of knowledge, 20.4% and 15.7% had good and inadequate knowledge respectively regarding maternal nutrition during pregnancy. More than half (61.4%) of the respondents had a good level of overall dietary practice, 36.1% had satisfactory and only 2.5% had poor dietary practices. Occupational status (P=0.04) and number of pregnancies (P= 0.025) were significantly associated (p=0.047). Majority of the respondents have satisfactory level of knowledge and good practices regarding maternal nutrition in this study area. Health educational programmes should be intensified on maternal nutrition and dietary practices for further improvement of the health status of mothers for better pregnancy outcomes.
