1 out of 4 Filipino pregnant women nutritionally at risk
About 26.3 percent or one in every four Filipino pregnant women is nutritionally at-risk according to the latest National Nutrition Survey (NNS) by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST)
Pregnant women who were below the 95th percentile based on weight- for- height cut off points were considered nutritionally at risk.
The proportion of nutritionally–at–risk pregnant women significantly decreased by 2.1 percentage point from 2005 with a 28.4 percent prevalence rate of 26.3 percent in 2008.
However, the government’s target- reduction to 20.9 percent of nutritionally at-risk pregnant women by 2010 may not be likely achieved.
Improvement in maternal health is the fifth among the Milleneum Development Goals, which the Philippines committed to chive along with other nations.
Pregnant women have high nutritional needs. A pregnant woman not only has to satisfy her own nutritional requirements but also of the growing fetus in her womb.
Her nutritional status before and during pregnancy determines the nutritional status of her infant at birth and months and years after that.
Poor nutrition among pregnant women results to low birth weight babies and may experience difficult labor and major complications such as severe hemorrhages, infections high blood pressure and abscesses of the breasts, among others.
The NNS also showed that 43 in every 100 pregnant women are anemic.
Though the prevalence decreased from 43.9 percent in 2003 to 42.5 percent in 2008, the rates are not significantly different. The prevalence of anemia among pregnant women is still of high public health concern. (PIA -LOL)
