Pregnancy serves as a vital period during which nutrition has major effect on the health of the baby and the mother. Lacking sufficient good quality nutrition during pregnancy can lead the mother and the fetus to experience health issues. Malnutrition during pregnancy leads to an increase in conditions, such as hypertension, miscarriages, gestational anemia, fetal deaths, maternal mortality, and pre-term delivery. Poor nutrition during pregnancy can also lead to growth retardation of the fetus and low birth weight. These might lead to long-term repercussions on the quality of life and development of newborns, which might contribute to increased healthcare costs. Malnutrition also influences the newborn’s immune system development. Thus, recognizing the relationship between fetal development and maternal nutrition is crucial. The paper discusses nutritional risk factors related to teenagers, culture, socioeconomic factor, and dietary complications during pregnancy.
When pregnant, teenagers have significant nutritional needs, which are not possible to meet at the time. Dietary patterns for adolescents, including skipping meals, dieting, snacking, eating fast foods, trying unconventional means, and consuming unconventional meals are the typical eating patterns for adolescents. These relate to their shifting lifestyles related to busy schedules, increased autonomy, peer influence, dissatisfaction with body image, group conformity, and search for self-identity. The overall nutritional needs among pregnant teenagers over 2-year post-menarche equal the ones of pregnant adults (Whitworth, Cockerill, & Lamb, 2017) . However, their dietary habits are poor, which lead them to enter pregnancy while having reduced nutrient stores and subject to nutritional deficiency risks. The poor nutrient and energy supplies required for muscle mass and fat deposition lead to stalled lactation and pregnancy due to the competition that exists between growing tissues during pregnancy as well as the needs for fetal growth (Papri, Khanam, Ara, & Panna, 2016) . As such, dietary patterns among patterns serve as nutritional risk factors among adolescents during pregnancy.
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Culture also presents nutritional risk factors during pregnancy. For instance, ethnicity has major influence on cooking practices. For instance, place of birth of a women might influence culinary methods. When such women are acculturated in other cultures, their dietary practices and health change significantly. For example, immigrants adopt the dominant U.S. culture’s lifestyle practices. These lead the status of their health to decline, particularly since they end up consuming diets that do meet their nutritional needs when pregnant. However, it is essential to note that the influences of acculturating differ based on ethnic origin (Milman, Paszkowski, Cetin, & Castelo-Branco, 2016) . An additional risk factor related to culture is one of the social class. The sociocultural environment constrains what people eat. Clear distinctions exist in social classes when it comes to nutrient and food intake. Poor diets, including under-nutrition and over nutrition can lead to nutrient deficiency and overweight respectively. These issues face all aspects of the society. The reason for this is that culture affects how distinct classes consume food based on their traditions. In other case, the practices might require the exclusion of foods, such as milk and meat from a diet, which reduces their nutritional capacity (Jevtić, et al., 2015) . Such practices lead pregnant women to consume food without adequate nutrition, hence affecting their overall health and that of their unborn children.
The socioeconomic environment influences access to affordable and quality food, which affects the quality of the diet that pregnant women consume. Furthermore, the time women have for obtaining and preparing nutritious meals influences their diet quality. Women working beyond their households usually shop and prepare foods. The ones lacking sufficient income and time rely on processed foods, which have lower nutritional value that leads them to experience declined nutritional status. The low-income, especially the single parent women are among the ones mostly subject to food insufficiency with higher cases of obesity prevalent among them. Food insufficiency also leads women to experience poor nutritional status due to skipping meals and declined nutrient intake (de Castro, et al., 2016) . Such women also purchase lower-priced food, which subjects them to many calories that lead them to increase their weight.
Certain dietary complications relate to nutrition. For instance, obesity and weight gain are among the major complications. When women are heavier before becoming pregnant, they risk many pregnancy complications, such as cesarean delivery and still births among others. Obesity during pregnancy also leads to increased healthcare utilization and longer delivery periods in hospitals. The costs of healthcare delivery increase for those kinds of patients. Coupled with inadequate finances, their levels of healthcare deteriorate. They are incapable of supporting their children adequately (Korbaffo & Benu, 2019) . As such, they end up subjecting their children to additional complications. Gestational diabetes is also a dietary complication related to nutrition deficiency. It emerges when women who did not have diabetes initially develop the condition when they become pregnant. Glucose serves as the body’s major energy source. Gestational diabetes due to hormonal changes hinder the body from producing sufficient insulin or normally. Glucose ends up building in the body, which leads to diabetes. The result is that women face challenges when delivering their baby (Gentile, 2017) . The newly born baby might also suffer from the condition.
Pregnancy Nutritional Meal Plan
Conclusion
In conclusion, pregnancy is a sensitive period that requires women to have optimal nutrient intakes in the meals they consume. Lack of adequate nutrients can subject mothers and fetuses to health complications. Some of the issues might have lasting implications on newly born child. Hence, observing nutritional needs is crucial to women when pregnant. Pregnant teenagers should serve as major area of focus since their dietary habits subject them to poor nutrition intake. Culture and the socioeconomic environment are also major areas to consider since they assist in avoiding incidences of nutritional risk factors during pregnancy. Furthermore, paying attention dietary related complications is essential during pregnancy. Observing these requirements would contribute to healthy and successful pregnancies and births.
References
de Castro, M. B., Vilela, A. A., de Oliveira, A. S., Cabral, M., de Souza, R. A., Kac, G., & Sichieri, R. (2016). Sociodemographic characteristics determine dietary pattern adherence during pregnancy. Public Health Nutrition, 19 (7), 1245-1251.
Gentile, S. (2017). Untreated depression during pregnancy: Short-and long-term effects in offspring. A systematic review. Neuroscience, 342 (1), 154-166.
Jevtić, M., Pantelinac, J., Jovanović-Ilić, T., Petrović, V., Grgić, O., & Blažić, L. (2015). The role of nutrition in caries prevention and maintenance of oral health during pregnancy. Medicinski Pregled, 68 (11-12), 387-393.
Korbaffo, A. R., & Benu, M. O. (2019). Analysis stress level and diet for pregnant women with the incidence of preeclampsia Ahmad Dahlan Hospital. Journal of Nursing Practice, 2 (2), 143-146.
Milman, N., Paszkowski, T., Cetin, I., & Castelo-Branco, C. (2016). Supplementation during pregnancy: beliefs and science. Gynecological Endocrinology, 32 (7), 509-516.
Papri, F. S., Khanam, Z., Ara, S., & Panna, M. B. (2016). Adolescent pregnancy: risk factors, outcome and prevention. Chattagram Maa-o-Shishu Hospital Medical College Journal, 15 (1), 53-56.
Whitworth, M., Cockerill, R., & Lamb, H. (2017). Antenatal management of teenage pregnancy. Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Reproductive Medicine, 27 (2), 50-56.
