Health Issues Related to Poor Nutrition for Pregnant Mothers

Discuss about the Nutrition For Global Health.

Nutrition is the building block of healthy life and well-being. It is important to have balanced diet in order to maintain healthy lifestyle. A balanced diet should contain every component of nutrition such as protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals (Dumlu et al. 2014). Unhealthy diet, that means a diet in which there is deficiency or overdose of nutrients, could lead to serious health issues. Malnutrition is one of the biggest issues related to nutrition and due to poor nutritional condition in modern day; many people are suffering from such nutrition issue (Mehta et al. 2013). Health issues related to nutrition can affect any generation or population such as new born, children adults and old aged people as well. However, the pregnant mothers are more prone to such nutrition issue as it could affect not only the health of the mother but also the foetus. If the mother is suffering from malnutrition, it can cause difficulties in survival of the foetus. The poor nutrition condition of the pregnant mother affects the delivery condition of the mother as well. Adequate nutrition is important for the pregnant mother as it affects the growth of body and brain of the foetus. It can lead to poor health condition so that the baby could bear physical or mental challenges (Lee et al. 2013). The paper will discuss briefly about the consequence of nutritional issues, various factors influencing the nutritional condition of pregnant mothers and impact of different nutritional programmes. 

Healthy pregnancy is important in order to give birth of a healthy baby. Poor nutrition condition of the pregnant mother affect the health condition of the foetus to an extent. Maternal malnutrition affects the physical and mental development of the foetus. The baby could be susceptible to various severe diseases, for example, neural tube defects, heart disease, problems related to low weight and many others. Poor nutrition condition of the pregnant mothers is responsible for the low IQ level of the child. Even due to the maternal malnutrition condition, the mother could give birth to a physically or mentally challenged baby (Agarwal et al. 2013). The mothers are also susceptible to various health related issues. One of the main issues is the occurrence of anaemia. Anaemia is mainly caused due to the lack of iron and folic acid and it could leads to the risk of haemorrhage, which is the main reason of high mortality rate during pregnancy. 40% of the pregnant woman is suffering from anaemia due to the lack of iron (Morsy and Alhady 2014). Calcium deficiency is another risk factor of maternal mortality. Malnutrition is the main cause of infections during pregnancy as it reduces the immunity of the pregnant mother. Another health issue related to the malnutrition is reduction in breast milk production. Inadequate feeding of breast milk can cause severe health issue such as stunting growth to the newborn.

Social Consequences of Poor Nutrition for Pregnant Mothers

There are many social consequences occur due to malnutrition in the pregnant mothers. It is one of the biggest causes of reducing the rate of well-being in the society and affects the healthy lifestyle of the individual. The poor nutrition status of the newborns is responsible for the poor nutrition status of the society and the population. Maternal malnutrition plays an important role in diminishing the health status of the women in the society. Inadequate nutrients results in the low IQ of the children. Study has shown that, most of the children with stinting growth delay to get admission in the school (Chertoff 2015). They may results in the less educated adults and could suffer from earning problem or unemployment in future. Such incidents affect the overall social status of the population. High infant and maternal mortality rate of a population is due to the poor nutrition condition of the pregnant mothers. Undernourished infants and mothers are more susceptible to the communicable diseases. It causes increase in the rate of transmissible disease in the society. The population has to suffer from the consequence and such incidents results in the cost to society in order to take care of the suffering people.

The improved nutrition condition is important to live a healthy life and poor nutrition condition affects the health of individual and the well-being of the society. Despite of affecting the social and health status, malnutrition has strong influence on the economic condition of a population. Productivity and development of the nation is directly related to the health status of the nation. Slow growth or stunt growth due to poor nutrition condition of pregnant mothers reduces the productivity of the nation thus reduce the profitability as well. Low rate of literacy due to malnutrition leads to high rate of unemployment in the nation, which directly affects the economic condition of the nation. In such health condition a nation has to spend more money for the health care purpose, which affect the economy of the nation. Malnutrition reduces the rate of growth of the country. According to statistics, 2 to 3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product is the economic cost of malnutrition in the developed countries and in the nation that is highly affected with malnutrition; the economic cost is 16% approx (Horton and Steckel 2013).

Malnutrition is caused by many factors. The main causes of malnutrition are as followed-

• Lack of healthy diet is one of the main causes of malnutrition. A proper diet must contain appropriate amount of nutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals. Most of the people do not have idea about nutrients and proper diet. In poor population, people do not have access to proper nutrients. Such situations lead to malnutrition.
• Malnutrition can cause by the symptoms of any disease. For example, low intake of food due to dysphagia, in which a person face difficulties in swallowing food can lead to malnutrition (Crary et al. 2013).
• Due to digestive problem and poor stomach condition people may suffer from malnutrition. Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis is such a condition in which a person face difficulties in absorbing nutrients (Shen, Zuo and Mao 2013).
• Malnutrition in the newborn is mainly caused by the poor health condition of the mother. If the mother does not intake proper nutrients during pregnancy, the newborn may suffer from the illness.
• Inadequate breast-feeding is the main cause of malnutrition in the infants.
• Excessive addiction to alcohol can damage the pancreas and the person fails to absorb nutrients from the food. Such person does not feel hungry as alcohol contains calorie. Thus, they do not eat proper amount of food and become prone to malnutrition.
• Poverty is directly linked to malnutrition. People from poor population lack access to adequate amount of food and suffers from malnutrition.
• Eating disorder such as Anorexia Nervosa in which people refuse to eat proper amount of food in order to avoid obesity and Bulimia Nervosa in which people have tendency to eat excessive food can cause malnutrition.
• Lack of healthy environment is also responsible for the illness. In the unhygienic environment, food can become contaminated with harmful organisms and eating such unhygienic food can cause malnutrition.
• Lack of proper resources and unequal access to the resources lead to the consequence of malnutrition in the society.

Economic Consequences of Poor Nutrition for Pregnant Mothers

The UNICEF framework of cause of malnutrition has defined the causes in three level; basic cause including lack of social, financial and economic resources, underlying causes including household food security, inadequate health care practice and unhygienic environment and immediate causes including symptoms of other diseases, improper diet and maternal under nutrition.

There are many factors that plays an important role in influencing the nutrition condition of the population and all the factors are inter connected. Poverty is one of the main factors. Due to poverty, people lack access proper amount of food and suffer from malnutrition (Kaliamoorth  2013). This factor influences the health factor like lack of balanced diet.  As mentioned before, symptoms of many diseases are another factor that influences the nutrition condition. Such health factors occur due to unhygienic environmental condition. In unhygienic environment, there is high chance of contamination of food with harmful microbes that can lead to malnutrition. They are the main factors that influence the poor nutrition condition of a nation and they need to be addressed in order to maintain healthy life.

The poor nutrition in the pregnant mothers is a threat for future of a nation, thus, the issue need to be addresses in an effective manner. Proper education related to nutrition is needed to provide to individual so that they can understand the importance of balanced diet. Diagnosis of malnutrition is needed at the first stage of pregnancy in order to provide proper treatment. A special diet chart is needed to provide to the pregnant mothers so that they can intake proper amount of food. Medication needs to be provided for a supplement of essential nutrients. Many health drinks are available in the recent days for pregnant women, including them in the diet can be proved beneficial (Pee et al. 2015). Proper breast-feeding is needed for the infant from 0-6 months, as it is the main source of nutrients for them. Such actions could help to reduce the incident of malnutrition in pregnant mothers (Khan,  Iqbal and Arshad 2015).

Many nutrition programmes has been provided in order to counter the issue of nutrition regarding pregnancy. One of such programme is Community Nutrition Programme provided by the World Health Organization (Vaidyananthan and Shrimpton 2017). Through the programme service is provided at the community nutrition centres in the poor rural and urban areas. The objective of the programme was to provide pure water and increase the household food security in the poor areas in order to reduce the severity of poor nutrition condition especially for the vulnerable population like pregnant women. The target population of the programme was pregnant women, infant and children. The key component was service for improving maternal health and providing healthy growth to the infants and children. Through the service, proper nutrition guidelines were provided in the urban and peri-urban areas. A community-based intervention was provided in order to address the nutrition issue through large-scale programme. The programme has reduced the underweight issue to an extent and the programme became successful due to providing service to the vulnerable community.

Factors Influencing Nutrition Condition for Pregnant Mothers

The contribution of the programme is remarkable, as it has provided essential resources to the people with need. The programme linked with other programmes regarding nutrition problem by providing guidelines of nutrition interventions. The motive of such programmes is same; reduction of challenges related to poor nutrition (Bhutta et al. 2013). Still problems existed in many populations. In order to counter the issue related to nutrition, it is important to make education a part of the programme. To resolve the nutrition problem people need to know about the importance of balanced diet so that they can intake proper food in order to remain healthy (Shrimpton et al. 2014). Such extra effort in the programme could lead to success of the programme to an extent.

Conclusion:

From the above information, it can be concluded that, nutrition is the essential part of daily life and one should intake proper nutrients in order to remain healthy. Due to lack of nutrition many health related issue could occur. Malnutrition is one of such issues in the recent days. Pregnant mothers are the most vulnerable community that are prone to malnutrition. The poor nutrition condition of the mother can affect the physical and mental growth of the baby. The consequence of malnutrition affects health, social and economic status of a nation. In order to prevent the illness proper information about nutrition is important to provide to individual through nutrition programmes. Such steps can be proved beneficial in addressing the health issue related to nutrition and help a nation to achieve sustainable development.

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