Nutrition before and during pregnancy plays extremely important role
in ensuring maternal and infant health. Information on the nutritional status of
pregnant women in Saudi is still limited. Therefore the present study was
carried out to assess the nutritional status of pregnant women, and to
investigate their food habits. A systematic random sample of 80 pregnant
women were chosen from maternity hospital in (AL-Madina AI-Munawara)
city. Socia-economics status, 24 hr dietary recall, food habits, information
about risk factors and anthropometric measurements were obtained. This
study revealed pronounced difficieneies in energy during pregnancy at 1s'and
3rd trimesters and zinc for pregnant women at different pregnancy periods.
There was some different positive significant correlations between intake of
some nutrients on one side and many health factors as the hemoglobin level
frequency of abortions and disease for pregnant women during second
trimester as well as anthropmelric measurements during third trimester. The
results arrived at suggest to consider variety of the diet and increase intake of
zinc (to avoid zinc deficiency) as well as the balance of diets in the meal.
Moreover nutrition education is recommended for improving nutrition and
health status of pregnant women and their infants.