TITLE:
Nutrition Uptake among Pregnant Women: A Case of Solwezi District, North Western Province
AUTHORS:
Prisca Womba Muchima, Catherine M. Ngoma, Natali Mbewe Shitima
KEYWORDS:
Pregnant Women, Determinants, Nutritional Uptake, Knowledge, Attitude, Practices
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
Vol.13 No.5,
May
31,
2023
ABSTRACT: Background: Zambia has a population of 17.4 million people of which 48% are unable to
meet their minimum calorie requirement and 35% of the children in Zambia are
stunted (ZDHS, 2018). In the 2018 ZDHS report, 31% of women aged 15 - 49 had anaemia. Most cases of anaemia in pregnancy
are due to micronutrient deficiency and maternal malnutrition. The 2020 Zambia
Global Nutrition Report shows an increase in the prevalence of anaemia among
women of reproductive age (45%) and low
birth weight infants (13.0%) which suggested a need to explore determinants of
pregnant women’s nutrition uptake in order to improve the nutritional status of
pregnant women particularly those in Solwezi district of the north-western
province of Zambia. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was
conducted on antenatal mothers aged 15 - 49 accessing
routine antenatal care from four selected health facilities in Solwezi district
from July 2021 to February 2021. Cluster sampling method was used to select the
4 health facilities and the 98 antenatal mothers were selected using systematic
sampling method. Data was collected using a pretested researcher-assisted semi-structured
questionnaire and analyzed using the SPSS version 26. Chi-square test was used
to determine associations between the independent and independent variables.
The level of significance was set at 0.05 and the confidence interval was set
at 95%. Multiple logistic regression analysis was done to predict associations
among variables. Results: The findings revealed that a large proportion
of respondents (71.4 %) had high knowledge regarding nutrition during pregnancy
compared to (19.4%) and (9.2%) who expressed medium and low knowledge levels
respectively. Attitude towards nutrition in pregnancy was positive in the
majority, 82 (83.7%) of the respondents, and over half, (55%) of the respondents
reported good nutrition uptake during pregnancy. Conclusions: In this
study, nutrition uptake in pregnancy was significantly associated with women’s
attitudes towards nutrition. It was also observed that more respondents who had
a positive attitude towards nutrition had good nutrition uptake during
pregnancy. We can therefore, conclude that the research study has revealed that
majority of the respondents had high knowledge level and positive attitudes
towards nutrition during pregnancy and only half of the respondents had good
nutrition uptake during pregnancy which should be able to prompt all the
stakeholders of health to focus their attention on behavioural change messages,
policies and intervention in order to enhance good nutrition uptake among
pregnant women.