Children’s Calcium ± Vitamin D Dietary Supplements (DS): Nutrient Strength and Compliance with FDA Guidance for Performance Quality and Labeling of Chewable Tablets

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to increase the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding IFA supplement intake during pregnancy as well as to provide supportive environment for a healthier birth outcome of the working women who are less privileged and works in a very engaging setting of garment industry of Bangladesh who employs around 4.2 million workers and 90 percent of whom are women.Methods: We conducted a pre-post study to assess both baseline and progress using a cross-sectional design to accomplish the objectives and adopted mixed method to collect data.A total of 174 under privileged pregnant working women at RMG factories were interviewed during their 1 st trimester of pregnancy followed by more interviews during their 6 months after delivery.However, about 75% of the primary study participants were lost to follow up and the final sample size was 58.Results: The main findings of this study are that working pregnant women who were provided with supportive working environment including periodic awareness on nutritional counselling during ANC within their workplace and functional referral system for further services has a higher rate of IFA intake.Knowledge regarding importance of IFA supplementation increased 21% to 67% during progress assessment among the participants.76% were aware of IFA supplement and 56% of them disagreed that taking a supplement has a higher caesarean delivery rate.However, 65% of the participants were found up taking IFA supplement till the last trimester of pregnancy which was 17% (P value 0.709) during baseline.Conclusions: Pregnancy requires adequate nutrition, especially IFA supplementation, but unfortunately, micronutrient deficiencies during pregnancy are still very common around the world.With Investments in workplace nutrition policies and programs that more effectively encourage working mothers to adopt healthy nutritional behavior can lead to better birth outcomes.