ABSTRACT

 Pica is usually common during pregnancy and may have a significant input on pregnancy progress and outcome. This study was carried out to determine the dietary pattern and prevalence of pica among pregnant women in Enugu East Local government. The study was a cross sectional study. A multi stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 298 respondents which were all pregnant women. Data on socio economic / demographic characteristics, dietary pattern, knowledge of pica, its consumption and perception among them were collected using structured and validated questionnaire. The IBM SPSS version 21.0 computer program was used to analyse the data. Significant relationship was judged at p< 0.05. data obtained were described using frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Correlation analysis was used to analyse the relationship between the dietary pattern and pica consumption. Result from the study showed that 35.2% and 30.9% were within the age of 30-39 and 20-29 years, respectively. More than half (52.7%) stopped at primary school. Greater percentage (54.7% of the women earned less than N10,000 while 33.9% of their husbands earned N11,000- N30,000, monthly. However, 24.2% were teachers while 42.6% of their husbands were farmers. About quarter (25.2%) of them ate food three times a day with only 7.7% skipping breakfast, 34.9% preferred rice. only 15.1% of them avoided foods such as meat/fish, eggs, milk, fruits and beans. Majority (95.6% and 88.9%) of them consumed fruits and vegetables such as orange, guava, water melon, pineapple, carrot, cucumber, cabbage, garden egg and amaranth. About 28.9% of them opted that they took alcoholic beverages, most of the started consuming it during pregnancy and the type of alcohol mostly consumed were palm wine, raffia and stout. Majority (70.8%) of the women had poor knowledge of pica and some of the pica taken by them sometimes were local white chalk (53.7%), clay (47.7%), ice block (35.6%) and sand (36.9%). The prevalence of pica among pregnant women in this study was 21.6% and geophagy (clay, sand and chalk) was mostly practised among them. Pica is mostly prevalent among pregnant women aged 20-40 years of age. There is a significant relationship between the dietary pattern and pica consumption among the pregnant women (p<0.05). In conclusion, the women should be encouraged to stop eating pica, no matter the type, including carbonated and alcoholic drinks. Their daily intake of plant source of protein was encouraging; however they should be advised to eat a lot of animal source of protein, fruits and vegetables, if possible daily for the sake of the growing foetal.