AWARENESS OF GOOD NUTRITION BEFORE AND DURING PREGNANCY AMONG WOMEN FOR MOTHER AND CHILD HEALTH IN DELTA STATE NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the awareness of good nutrition before and during pregnancy among women for mother and child health in Ughelli North Local Government, Delta State. Ten (10) research questions were raised to guide the study and six (6) null hypotheses were formulated and tested. The descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. The population consisted of all registered pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in all the thirty (30) public health centers in Ughelli North Local Government Area, Delta State. The sample of the study consist of 182 pregnant women. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used for the selection of the sample. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, a three-sectioned structured questionnaire was validated by the researcher supervisor and two data expert and reliability was ascerted using the cronbach alpha statistics with respective reliability coefficients of 0.78, 0.74, and 0,75 which yielded a mean cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.77 was administered to the selected pregnant women. Data collected were analysed and all the hypotheses were tested using both descriptive and inferential statistics of mean, standard deviation, mean difference and one-way Analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents have a high level of awareness of preconception nutritional preparation(x= 2.76±0.63) and a high level of awareness of healthy nutritional practices during pregnancy(x=3.52±0.44). There was a significant difference between religion and before pregnancy (F=6.012, P=0.003) and a significant difference between gravida and before pregnancy (F=5.260, P=0.006) but there was no association between the socio-demographic characteristics and during pregnancy. The study recommends nurses should focus on healthy nutritional preparation before pregnancy when conveying health talk to pregnant women during their antenatal visits with emphasis on the most needed nutrients before pregnancy. It was also  recommended that government should as a matter of urgency initiate nutritional programs to consistently reach the people through radio, television and other information disseminating mediums to ensure proper and adequate education of pregnant women to reduce the problem of poor nutrition during pregnancy among women.