Effectiveness of antenatal education on knowledge and practice of maternal nutrition among antenatal women

Background: Nutrition plays a vital role in pregnancy. During pregnancy the need of calorie intake of mother increases from 100k.cal/day during the first trimester to 340-450k.cal/day during the second and third trimester. Pregnant women should have an adequate intake of macronutrients and micronutrients to achieve optimum maternal, fetal and newborn outcomes. Imbalanced nutrition during pregnancy can cause pre-eclampsia, anemia, gestational diabetes mellitus, and infections, obstructed labour, prolonged labour and preterm births in pregnant women. It also affects fetus by causing intra uterine growth retardation, low birth weight, neural tube defects, congenital malformation, mental retardation and fetal macrosomia. Methods: A quasi-experimental one group pre-test post-test design was used, involving 100 antenatal women attending antenatal OPD at tertiary hospital in Bangalore. Data was collected by using a structured knowledge questionnaire and practice scale on maternal nutrition. Antenatal education on maternal nutrition was administered for 45 minutes by using power point. Post-test on knowledge was assessed after 7 days was assessed after 4 weeks of intervention. Results: Pre-test findings showed 67% of antenatal women had moderately adequate knowledge and 42% of subjects had adequate practice of maternal nutrition. After the antenatal education, 75% of the subjects had moderately adequate knowledge and 50% had adequate practice of maternal nutrition. The study revealed a significant improvement in knowledge (p=0.01) and practice (p=0.01) of antenatal women. There was a significant association between knowledge and practice and selected socio-demographic profiles. Conclusion: Antenatal education regarding maternal nutrition was effective in enhancing the knowledge and practice related to maternal nutrition among pregnant women. Therefore, the study also revealed that there is a correlation between knowledge and practice of maternal nutrition among antenatal women.