Evaluation of Nutrition Education during Pregnancy and Nutritional Knowledge of Pregnant Women

Abstract

Introduction: Healthy diet during pregnancy plays a key role for the unborn baby and the mother. According to many studies pregnant women are unable to meet their nutritional needs and they have unhealthy nutritional habits. The pregnancy process can be concluded more healthily in terms of the mother and baby by providing nutrition education to the pregnant women. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the necessity of prenatal nutrition training by measuring the level of nutritional knowledge in pregnant women. Method: In order to measure the level of nutrition knowledge in pregnancy, 20 questions were asked to 100 pregnant women. Nutritional knowledge score was described as “good” for those who gave the right answer to 16 or more statements, “average” for those who gave the right answer to 11–15 statements, and “inadequate” for those who gave the right answer to 10 or fewer statements. The results were evaluated at a significance level of p < 0.05 in the 95% confidence interval. Results: It was found that 26.0% of all the pregnant women had a “good” (16.4 ± 1.6), 46% of them had “average” (12.6 ± 1.9) and 28.0% had “inadequate” (8.5 ± 1.4) nutritional knowledge score. There was no statistically significant difference between average nutritional knowledge scores of those who received nutrition education (12.2 ± 3.1) and did not receive this training (12.3 ± 3.5) (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Nutrition education should be given to all pregnant women and this education should be made more qualified.