Introduction: Nutritional assessment of antenatal and postnatal mothers is important because a balanced and adequate diet is of utmost importance during pregnancy and lactation to meet the increased needs of the mothers and to prevent nutritional stress. Hence an attempt is being made to find the nutritional status of antenatal and postnatal mothers in selected rural areas at Nellore, Andhrapradesh.
Objective: To assess the nutritional status of antenatal and postnatal mothers.
Material and methods: The present community based cross-sectional study was conducted in rural areas of Nellore City of Andhrapradesh state (India) from15/12/13to 20/1/14. The study sample included 52 antenatal mothers, 21 postnatal mothers of aged 20-35years age group selected by convenience sampling method. .
Results and discussion: In the present study 43 mothers belong to 20-25 years of age group. Among this group, 8(15.38%) mothers were underweight, 33(63.46%) were normal and 2(3.8%) mothers were overweight, and 9 mothers belong to 26-30 years age group. In that only one mother had underweight (1.92%), 7(13.46%) mothers were normal and one mother had over weight (1.92%). There were 21 post natal mothers who came under the inclusion criteria of the study. In that, 15 mothers belong to 20-25 years age group. Among these, 3(10.28%) mothers were underweight and 12(57.14%) mothers had normal weight and 5 mothers belong to 26-30 years, in that only one mother was underweight (4.76%) and 4(19.04%) mothers had normal weight and one mother belongs to 31-35 years of age, had normal weight (4.76%). Multivariate analysis for height and weight with iron, protein and calories were done. It has shown that there is a significant relationship between height and weight with iron, protein and calories intake at α =0.05 level. In this study statistically significant association was found between nutritional status of the mothers with the education, occupation, and income of the mother. No statistical significant association was found between nutritional status and age of the mother, religion, type of family, availability of health services, environmental hygiene, source of health information, dietary pattern, following antenatal exercises, rest pattern, psychological support and antenatal visits.
Conclusion: The above results shown that there is a significant relation exists between nutritional status of the mother and the BMI and the BMI will be influenced with iron, protein, and calories intake of the mother.
