The relation between pregnant adolescents’ attitude about nutrition and weight gain during pregnancy and hemoglobin level

Abstract

Purpose: This study is carried out to analyze the rela- tion of weight raise and hemoglobin level during pre- gnancy of pregnant adolescents to their nutriational attitudes. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional study carried out to examine the relationship between nutrition habits vs weight and level of hemoglobin in the 49 pregnant adolescents participants (≤18 years of age) who had applied to pregnant and emergency ser- vices in Şammas Vehbi Ekecik Gynecology and Chil- dren’s Hospital in the city of Aksaray, Turkey, be- tween February 15 and March 25, 2004, and accepted to participate in this study. General information re- garding the pregnant adolescents, their knowledge on nutrition and nutritional habits were filled in during face-to-face interviews. These pregnant adolescents were monitored during the months of April, May, June and July and their measurements were taken. Data of the study were analyzed in a computer. Re- sults: When the nutritional knowledge scores of the pregnant adolescents are considered, it was seen that 30 (61.2%) had a good knowledge level, 10 (20.4%) had a knowledge of intermediary level, and 9 (18.3%) had a low or insufficient level of knowledge. As for the nutrition habit scores, 28 of pregnant adolescents (57.1%) had fine, and 21 of them (42.7%) had poor and inadequate levels of nutrition habits. Conclusion: When the relation between the hemoglobin levels measured of the pregnant adolescents’ according to the their nutrition knowledge scores and the distribu- tion of their habits was analysed, it was not found meaningful (p > 0.05).