A study to assess the expressed practices of pregnant women regarding the nutritional needs to prevent anemia during antenatal period at selected hospital of gurugram, haryana

Aim: A study to assess the expressed practices of pregnant women regarding the nutritional needs to prevent anemia during antenatal period at selected hospital of Gurugram, Haryana. Methodology: Non Experimental descriptive survey design was adopted in the present study. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample size of 60 Pregnant women visiting the O.P.D for antenatal assessment at selected hospital of Gurugram. The assessment of expressed practices of pregnant women regarding nutritional needs to prevent anemia during antenatal period was carried out using a validated checklist regarding. Results: Assessment of the expressed practices scores revealed that equal number of pregnant women i.e. 50% of antenatal mothers were following healthy dietary practices and same number (50%) of pregnant women were following unhealthy dietary practices regarding iron deficiency anemia. Chi-square test was used to find the association between expressed practices scores with selected demographic variables. The results indicated that there was a significant association between the expressed practices scores and educational level of pregnant women. Conclusion: The findings of the study depicts that The pregnant women also expressed unhealthy dietary practices that can lead to various complications for women as well as their babies i.e. abortion, maternal mortality, IUGR, preterm baby etc. Hence the nurses must increase their efforts to impart more knowledge and create awareness on treatment to prevent anaemia in pregnancy.