Abstract

Objective- Our study aimed to investigate the food habits of pregnant women in prenatal period, to assess their nutritional status to determine their socio-economic and practice of food taboos. Materials and methods-The study involved 130 pregnant women aged 19- 45 years attending antenatal clinics in PMI (Mother and Child Protection) of the town of Tebessa. We made based on survey questionnaires. And these questions are posed to every woman who has already completed the consultation. The weight and the height were measured by the respondent. Statistics- The software used for data entry and data processing are Epiinfo version 5TM and Stat view version 5 (Abacus ConceptsTM, Berkeley, USA). The significance level was set at 0.05. Result- Our results showed that 40% of pregnant women suffering from several diseases such as anemia, hypertension, diabetes and inflammatory diseases 17.70% of women surveyed were taking medication, 33.85% were supplemented, including 1.54% by feeding and 32.31% from drugs, 78.46% were overweight (39.23% are overweight and 39.23% are obese). Only 21.54% of women had a satisfactory weight status. The results of the analysis of biological data showed that 26.67%, 55.45% of pregnant women had hemoglobin and hematocrit, respectively, below the WHO standards. The power of women relied more heavily on plant foods than animal, making their poor food choices because of higher feed prices. Conclusion- Dietary advice must be tailored, must be based on weight and body mass before pregnancy and spontaneous food intake of each woman. The power will be varied without exclusion of food groups to cover the needs for vitamins, minerals and fatty acids.