Essential Nutrition Action practiecs And assocated Factors Among Pregnant Women In Ambo District,West Shoa Zone,Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Pregnancy is a critical time of human development. Anything that compromises the fetal environment may have important and lasting effects on the child’s future health. During pregnancy, the expecting mother needs optimal nutrients of superior qualities to support the developing fetus. Essential nutrition actions have been adopted by the Ethiopian government and as an intervention framework with specific doable actions since 2005. This intervention has been rolling out both during contact with health facilities and through the health extension workers. However, there is no study that documented the practice of pregnant women in this regard. Objective: The general Objective of the study was to assess essential nutrition action practice and associated factors among pregnant women in Ambo district. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Ambo district, Western Shewa Zone during March, 2016 to April 2016 among 724 pregnant women. The study participants were selected from thirteen Kebele’s (two from urban and eleven from rural strata) of Ambo district based on probability proportional to size (PPS) allocation technique. Data were edited, coded and entered into EPI-data 3.1, and then exported to SPSS for windows version 20 for cleaning and analyses. Both descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to describe essential nutrition action practices and to identify their independent predictors, respectively. P value <0.05 was used to declare statistical significance. Results: It was observed that 28.7% of participants practiced ENA, 32% had favorable attitude towards ENA and 39% had good knowledge on ENA, respectively. Pregnant women had limited quality of meal 11%, quantity of meal 42%, disease prevention and treatment10%, limited provision of iron/folate supplements30% and supportive life style 89% given to pregnant women in the study area. With regard to food taboos, a significant number of pregnant women restricted some important foods (cabbage, milk, chilies, meat and fish) due to misconception of these foods to be the cause of plastered on the child(66%), baby become whitish(60%) , big baby(51%), burn the child(43%) and injure the child(32%). The results of multivariable logistic regression analyses showed that, knowledge (AOR= 3.12, 95%CI [1.86, 5.25]), Health service availability (AOR= 3.76, 95%CI [2.39, 5.92]), Health & nutrition information (AOR= 3.25, 95%CI [1.94, 5.43]), Mother’s education(AOR= 3.41, 95% CI: [1.40 - 8.29]), husband education, (AOR= 5.6, 95% CI: [1.79- 17.5]), husband occupation(AOR= 3.57, 95% CI: [1.34- 9.53]), gestational age(AOR= 2.7, 95% CI: [1.47 – 4.92]), number of children(AOR= 0.25 & 0.14, 95% CI: [0.13-0.46]) and number of pregnancy(AOR= 0.44, 95% CI: [0.21- 0.91]) were independent predictors of ENA practice of pregnant women. Conclusion and recommendations:-The ENA practice of pregnant women was Low. This finding showed that, quantity & quality of meal, iron/folate supplement and disease prevention and treatment practice of pregnant women was very low in the study area. Knowledge, mother & husband education, father occupation, number of child & pregnancies, gestational age health service availability and health & nutrition information were significant independent predictors of optimal ENA practice. The finding imply, the need for strengthening the ENA BCC to create the demand for ENA services and refreshment training of health providers on ENA guidelines to improve ENA prcatices dring preganancy.