ABSTRACT

The study assessed the incidence of anemia and food habits of pregnant women at booking in the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital. The study employed the use of descriptive survey design. The sample for the study was 256 drawn from the 560 population of pregnant women in attendance at University of Uyo Teaching Hospital. The study used a structured questionnaire accompanied with hemoglobin measurement to obtain data for the study from the pregnant women. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square analysis. The present study revealed that the prevalence of anemia among pregnant women was 55.1% which is a severe public health problem. The result also revealed that there was high dietary diversity among the women as more than 60% of them had high dietary diversity score. The foregoing discussion indicated that anemia during pregnancy may be due to dietary diversity of the women as 33.6% had medium dietary diversity. The socio-economic characteristics of the women may also be a contributory factor as majority were earning below N70,000 monthly which is not commensurate to the economic conditions of the study area, the educational status of the women may also be a factor. The study among others recommended that continuous reproductive advice and education should be given to all reproductive age women to create awareness about the risk of developing anemia with late pregnancy. This will help to limit the child bearing age up to where the women can give birth without compromising their health.