The good health of a pregnant woman translates to the good health of her baby during pregnancy. Pregnant women should eat well during pregnancy to ensure the growth of their unborn babies and to prevent various pregnancy risks, including nutritional risks. Among several health-related risks that pregnant women suffer during pregnancy, nutritional risk factors tend to feature more than other risks. Therefore, there is a need to scrutinize some of the nutritional risk factors so that one can get to know how to avoid them. The best tool that pregnant women and their caregivers can use against these risk factors is knowledge; being informed about every single one of them is crucial because it makes pregnant women prevent these risks themselves. Nutritional risk factors in pregnant women vary in nature. There are such risks that are related to age. Other dietary risk factors are triggered by the culture and lifestyle of pregnant women, while socioeconomic factors inspire others. There are also such risks that are related to dietary complications.
Age
There are certain nutritional risk factors that only affect pregnant teenagers. According to Lee, Tsui, & Wang (2016), complications during teen pregnancies are a leading factor in infant morbidity and maternal mortality. Poor eating habits are a significant risk that expectant teenage mothers face. There is a tendency among adolescents to indulge in the eating of junk foods and avoidance of certain types of foods. Unfortunately, pregnant teenagers, too, practice poor eating habits, yet it makes them highly vulnerable to pregnancy complications. Eating excessive junk foods denies teenage mothers the opportunity to gain certain important nutrients for them and their unborn babies. Instead, junk foods subject them to possible further complications. Poor eating habits in teenagers are also characterized by the tendency to avoid eating vegetables, taking foods with too much sugar, and skipping certain important meals. All these habits deprive them of key body nutrients, thus making them vulnerable to complications during pregnancy, especially during the third trimester.
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Culture Related Nutritional Risk factors
Food taboos are a major nutritional risk factor in pregnant women that is related to culture. Certain cultures only take specific types of foods and despise certain foods. In other cultures, food taboos are only applicable to women or pregnant women. Such taboos and beliefs are inspired by cultural beliefs and are characterized by the practice of not eating certain foods. Adherence to food taboos and beliefs causes poor diet, which poses adverse consequences to pregnant women, risking both their lives and the lives of unborn babies (Vasilevski & Carolan‐Olah, 2016). When pregnant women adhere to such strict cultures of food taboos, they tend to deny themselves vital nutrients that are only available in certain types of foods. Missing key nutrients in pregnant mothers is very much risky because it hinders the growth of the unborn baby. Food taboos are a significant cause of malnutrition in pregnant mothers.
Cultures and lifestyles can also potentially cause a deficiency in nutrients in pregnant women due to the love for specific foods and lack of giving priority to pregnant women when they are pregnant. In some cultures, like the Massai community in Africa, women come last in the order of eating in a family, after men and children. This habit and culture increase the possibility of women taking less food. Therefore, they become subject to the risk of lacking enough food to sustain them during pregnancy, bearing the fact that expectant mothers take more quantity of food. The love for specific foods is yet another influence that can be blamed on cultures and family lifestyle. There are certain families and communities that do not fancy certain types of foods. This habit increases the vulnerability of expectant women in such communities and families to nutrition deficiency ( Goldstein, Teede, Thangaratinam, & Boyle, 2016 ). For example, coming from a family that does not fancy vegetables poses expectant mothers to the risk of nutrition deficiency.
Socioeconomic Nutritional Risk Factors
Living in a low socioeconomic life refers to living in a state of poverty. Low socioeconomic status puts pregnant to the risk of undernutrition as a result of the lack of finances to afford certain foods that provide important nutrients to expectant mothers and their unborn babies. According to a study conducted in Kaprup district, Assam, expectant women tend to fall below the normal figure for Body Mass Index (BMI) due to undernutrition caused by poverty and lack of finances to afford enough foods during pregnancy (Dutta & Sengupta, 2017). As a result of this undernutrition, pregnant mothers in their final trimester also risk the possibility of being anemic and having low levels of critical micro-nutrients in their bodies. Expectant mothers specifically risk having small amounts of zinc and copper, which are very much vital in the growth of the fetus. Apart from that, pregnant women also risk the possibility of lacking adequate energy as a result of undernutrition caused by low socioeconomic status. Energy is yet very vital in delivery.
Risk Factors Related to Dietary Complications
Dietary complications refer to the prevailing nutritional conditions that women suffer. One such condition is iron-deficiency anemia, a condition that is caused by excessive bleeding during periods and failure of women to take iron-rich foods during pregnancy. This condition poses pregnant women and their unborn babies into certain risks during pregnancy and childbirth. According to Govindappagari & Burwick (2019), affects about 20 percent of pregnant women, as well as their unborn babies. Children born with women with iron-deficiency anemia are highly vulnerable to developing anemia. Apart from that, the iron-deficiency condition makes unborn children stand the risk of suffering from developmental delays. In this case, they will fail to have completely developed organs at the time of birth. Low-birth weight for children at birth is yet another risk that iron-deficiency anemia poses pregnant women. Additionally, this condition also causes postpartum depression in women.
Obesity is yet another dietary complication that increases the risk of pregnant women and their children suffering from problems and difficulties during pregnancy. Obesity is a nutritional condition by weight high and above human BMI and caused by the consumption of excessive fats in the body. Catalano & Shankar (2017) suggest that obesity is a major risk factor for several complications during pregnancy. Obesity in pregnant women increases the possibility of miscarriage, recurrent miscarriage, and stillbirth. Obesity is presumed to be a major cause of high blood pressure, a leading cause of further complications in pregnancy. Apart from that, obesity is a possible cause of giving birth to an overweight baby, who is at more risk of suffering from breathing problems. Obesity also limits the possibility of a normal delivery in women through the cervix, subjecting them to birth through caesarian section.
Conclusion
In summary, maternal nutrition is very important in health for pregnant women and their unborn babies. However, various nutrition factors increase negatively affects the health of pregnant mothers. There are age-related risk factors affecting pregnant women, especially teenage pregnant women. Other nutritional risk factors come as a result of the cultural beliefs and lifestyles of pregnant women. Cultural factors include nutrition habits influenced by culture, family, and lifestyle. There are also certain nutritional risk factors that are caused by the socioeconomic status of pregnant women. Living in poverty is a major risk factor in pregnant women because it makes them unable to afford basic foods. Finally, other risk factors are caused by dietary complications.
References
Catalano, P. M., & Shankar, K. (2017). Obesity and pregnancy: mechanisms of short term and long term adverse consequences for mother and child. Bmj, 356, j1.
Dutta, P., & Sengupta, B. (2017). SOCIOECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF MATERNAL ANEMIA. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Public Health (Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 71-87).
Goldstein, R., Teede, H., Thangaratinam, S., & Boyle, J. (2016). Excess gestational weight gain in pregnancy and the role of lifestyle intervention. In Seminars in reproductive medicine (Vol. 34, No. 02, pp. e14-e21). Thieme Medical Publishers.
Govindappagari, S., & Burwick, R. M. (2019). Treatment of iron deficiency anemia in pregnancy with intravenous versus oral iron: systematic review and meta-analysis. American journal of perinatology , 36 (04), 366-376.
Lee, W. L., Tsui, K. H., & Wang, P. H. (2016). Is nutrition deficiency a key factor of adverse outcomes for pregnant adolescents?
Vasilevski, V., & Carolan‐Olah, M. (2016). Food taboos and nutrition‐related pregnancy concerns among Ethiopian women. Journal of Clinical Nursing , 25 (19-20), 3069-3075.
