A Study of Nutritional Status and Prevalence of Anaemia among the Adolescent girls and Women of Reproductive age of Baigatribe accessing Antenatal Clinic in Public Health Sector in Chhattisgarh, India

Abstract

Nutritional problems have serious health implications impacting physical development, psychological, behavioral and work performance of an individual. Anaemia is the most common problem among pregnant and lactating women in most of the developing countries. Anemia during pregnancy is the most common preventable causes of maternal morbidity and poor prenatal outcome. Healthy growth and development of a girl through adolescence helps to prepare her for healthy pregnancies during child bearing years. Prevalence of anemia in India is very high across all groups. The present study was conducted to assess the levels of anaemia and nutritional status among the Baiga women and adolescent girls residing in three districts of Chhattisgarh. Only 42% of the Baiga women, of reproductive age, were found to have normal levels of anemia while 58% of them were found to be anaemic. Prevalence of anaemia was found to be very high among adolescent Baiga girls. Only 5.3% adolescent Baiga girls were found to have normal levels of Hb while 94.7% had various degrees of anaemia, putting them into high risk zones for the future pregnancies. Majority of the Baiga women respondents i.e. 47.33% had low BMI between16-18.5 which falls as under nutritional category, 6.67% were very severely underweight and only 40.66 % of the respondents could be categorized under the normal category of Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI among adolescent girls when compared to WHO 2004 standard of malnutrition revealed that 27.2% girls could be classified under the normal category, 24.2 % girls suffered from mild thinness, 17.8 % girls suffered from moderate thinness and 30.8% girls suffered from severe thinness category of malnutrition.The strategy of increasing iron intake in every households through dietary diversifications and use of iron fortified iodized salts, providing IFA supplementations to vulnerable groups, testing and timely treatment of pregnant women and adolescent girls with anaemia, is required to accelerate the pace of reduction in the prevalence of iron deficient anemia to enable the country to achieve SDG target for the reduction of anaemia.