Abstract

Background:Health & nutritional status of mother during & before pregnancy is
considered to be strongly associated with pregnancy outcomes. Poor nutritional status
& inadequate intake of food in pregnancy not only affect women’s health but also effect
birth weight & development of infant. The present study was conducting to analyse the
outcomes of maternal nutrition on infant's birth weight.
Material and methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among 350
pregnant women. Socio-demographic characteristics and obstetrics information of the
pregnant women were collected using pretested questionnaires. Anthropometric
measurements were carried out using appropriate measuring instruments. All statistical
analyses were performed using SPSS version 20. Multiple linear regressions analysis
was also performed to explore independent effects of maternal factors. A p value< 0.05
was considered to be significant.
Results: In this study, the mean weight and height of pregnant women were 63.25kg and
156.32cm, respectively. Overall, the mean pre-pregnancy BMI of the study participants
was 24.43kg/m2. The study also revealed that the mean weight gain of the mothers was
9.45kg, within the weight gain range of 4–16kg. The mean maternal hemoglobin level
was 11.76g/dL. Moreover, the mean total serum cholesterol level of the mothers was
187.32mg/dL. Maternal blood sample analysis also revealed that the mean total serum
protein level was 5.70g/dL, with 81.42% and 18.58% of women having total protein
level less than 6.7 g/dL and between 6.7 and 8.7 g/dL, respectively. In multivariate
linear regression analysis, birth weight was significantly associated with parity,
maternal BMI, weight gain during pregnancy, hemoglobin level.
Conclusion: The present study concluded that birth weight was significantly associated
with parity, maternal BMI, weight gain during pregnancy, hemoglobin level. Therefore,
nutritional status of the pregnant women should be improved to reduce the risk of low
birth weight.