Comparison of the Nutritional Health Profile of the Pregnant Women and its Association in Developing Anemia: A Progressive Study of the Rich and Poor Pregnant Women of the Ajmer City

ABSTRACT: Introduction- Anemia in pregnancy is one of the gravest world health crises affecting one fourth of the world population, mainly children and women of the reproductive age. The onset of anemia is attributed to two major classifications being ‘Nutritional’-meaning deficiency of minerals and vitamins, and ‘Non-nutritional’ corresponding to infection and hemoglobinopathies. The only micronutrient mandatorily required supplementing to fill the gap between the dietary intake and the demand is iron. Micronutrient’s iron, folate, and vitamins are very vital for the proper growth of the fetus during pregnancy. The diverse consequences of nutritional anemia are recurrent abortion, recurrent fetal loss, congenital abnormalities, preterm labour, reduced birth weight and neonatal and maternal mortalities. Methodology- It’s an empirical, longitudinal, prospective, and comparative study using a structured questionnaire on the target group of the urban population in the city of Ajmer city. Results and Conclusion- Assessing BMI, there were 51.61% of anemic rich pregnant women who were considered malnourished as they belonged to the group with BMI < 18.4 kg/m² whereas among the poor anemic pregnant women it was 75.87% women under this BMI. Evaluating the poor non-anemic pregnant women, nearly 16.98% of women belonged to BMI < 18.4 kg/m² category and 8.95% of the rich non-anemic women who had their BMI < 18.4 kg/m². Among the rich non-anemic pregnant women, there were 37.74% who came under the category of overweight having BMI >23kg/m² and only 3.77% of poor non-anemic women grouped under over weight. The mean+SD of Hb at third trimester of the rich and poor pregnant women was 10.4+1.02 and 9.0+0.02 respectively.  Keywords: Anemia, Reproductive Health, Nutrition, Pregnant Women.