Nutritional behavior in pregnancy

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of the study was to characterize nutritional behavior in pregnancy.

Material and methods: The survey study included 250 pregnant women. The survey concerned dietary behavior refferedto the type of diet, the number of meals per day, snacking between meals, consumption of meat, fish, dairy products,bread, fruits and vegetables.

Results: 88.8% of the respondents were not on a special diet. The most of the women ate more than three times a day.The women usually ate fruits and vegetables, yogurt and sweets as snacks between meals. The majority of respondentsconsumed meat and sliced meats twice or once a day with the preference of poultry. Only 17.6% of them ate fish with therecommended frequency and as much as 21.2% chose not-recommended species. Almost 29.6% of patients consumed3 to 4 servings of milk or milk products a day and 16.8% of them excluded milk. Half of the respondents declared eatingwheat bread and 24% of them chose wheat roll during pregnancy. Despite the large number of women who consumedwheat baking, a considerable amount of women chose wholemeal bread and wholemeal rolls. Nutritional behaviors werecorrelated with on education level and weight gain during pregnancy.

Conclusions: The frequency of meals was adequate for the most of pregnant women as well as recommended consumptionof meat with poultry preference. However, the inappropriate nutrition was also observed in a low consumption of fishand dairy products, a high consumption of wheat breadstuff and sweets, as well as in a small intake of milk. Education leveland weight gain during pregnancy were associated with nutritional behaviors.

Keywords: body mass index; eating habits; healthy lifestyle; nutritional behavior; proper diet; weight gain.