Food consumption, iron intake and dietary patterns of urban pregnant women from different socioeconomic populations in central Iran.

Abstract

Between January 1980-February 1981, researchers enrolled 400 low and middle socioeconomic women who were pregnant (at least 12 weeks gestation) from 2 prenatal clinics in Shiraz, Iran to assess their dietary patterns, food consumption, and iron intake. 294 women attended the prenatal clinic at the Helal-Ahmar Maternity Hospital and 106 the prenatal clinic at the Hafez Hospital. The researchers determined food consumption by dividing household consumption by an adjusted household size which included caloric needs of various age groups. Pregnant women of higher income tended to consume rice (p.005), meat (p.0001), poultry (p.0001), and greens and herbs (p.0001) more so than low income women. The poorer a household was the more likely the pregnant woman would eat more bread (p.005). The same foods, except bread, were negatively associated with household size, however (at most p.002). All women consumed 28 mg/day of iron and total iron intake of low income women was comparable to that of higher income groups. The leading source of dietary intake was bread regardless of income group. Yet as income rose, the proportion of dietary iron from bread fell and that from meat and poultry rose. For example, bread provided 82.3% of dietary iron for the very low income group, but only provided 59.2% for the middle and high income group. On the other hand, meat and poultry only provided 3.7% for the very low income group, but 15.2% for the middle and high income group. Moreover 14.8% of pregnant women in the very low and low income groups were anemic compared to only 3.4% in the middle low and middle high income groups during 31-40 weeks gestation. Perhaps the iron in the diet of the more affluent women was more bioavailable than that in the diet of the less affluent women.