studies on Nutritional problems among families of armed forces personnel

Abstract

‎450 serial cases of pregnancy of 20 weeks duration or less reporting for antenatal check up in ‎a military hospital were registered with the project out of which 215 completed their ‎pregnancy during the one year period under review. The socio-economic physical, dietary, ‎weight gain, haematological and biochemical parameters of the mothers were related to each ‎other and to the birth weight of the baby in an attempt to evaluate the nutritional problems of ‎pregnant women in Pakistan.‎

‎2. The studies have clearly brought out the importance of maternal height in the reproductive ‎performance. Tall mothers have been shown to have a more spontaneous labour and higher ‎birth weight of babies. The pregnancy weight of the mother however, did not show any ‎correlation with reproductive performance. The average height in the series (mainly punjabi ‎women) comes to 62" with a S.D of 2.1". This is only 1.5" less than the Harvard Standard of ‎heights of adult women. The average weight was 107 lbs with a S.D of 11.9 lbs as against the ‎Harvard Standard of average height of 121 lbs. Compared to height, there is a greater ‎deficiency in weight showing caloric deficit in the diet. The birth weight of children is 7.1 lbs ‎which is closely similar to the Harvard standard of 7.4 lbs. This speaks of the great efficiency ‎of human reproductive performance. The fertility, the birth weight and the growth rate during ‎the first few months of life in the poor developing countries are closely similar to those seen ‎in advanced countries. However, the growth and mortality rate get woefully adverse within a ‎few months after the child has left the womb.‎

‎3. The average dietary intake was found to have calories 72%, proteins 120%, calcium 33%, ‎iron 41%, vitamins Bl, 114%, B2 41%, Niacin 100% and C 64% of the recommended intake. ‎The diet therefore is adequate only in proteins, vitamins b and Niacin content only and is ‎grossly inadequate in all other ingredients. The crucial deficiencies are in calories, ca & Fe. ‎The caloric deficiency is due to low caloric density of traditional Pakistani diet due to low fat ‎intake. The extensive shortages that has been brought out in dietary intake tends to indicate ‎that the current recommendations are too high and need to scaled down. However, more data ‎are needed to come to a firm conclusion on this point. There was a positive correlation of +0.3 ‎between the caloric intake and birth weight of baby and of +0.5 between the protein intake ‎and birth weight Both the correlations were significant.‎

‎4. This average weight gain pregnancy was found to be 12 lbs with range of 0-24 lbs. Thus ‎the weight gain is just 50% of the reported weight gain in western world. No correlation ‎could be seen between the weight gain and the birth weight of the baby except in the cases ‎which the women actually lost weight. The average serum calcium of Pakistani women during ‎pregnancy is 10±1.5 mg/dl which is well within the normal limits. However, as many as 25% ‎of cases have serum Ca less than 8 mg/dl. However, the biochemical evidence of occult ‎osteomalacia, based on values of serum Ca x P less than 40 and serum Alkaline Phosphatase ‎more than 20 K A Units was seen in 6% to 9% cases only. These figures pertain to the ‎families of troops only.‎

Conclusions:‎

‎6. The data collected so far brings out the importance of adequate prepubertal nutrition of ‎females to permit the full realization of the growth potential of our women. There is also an ‎unequivocal evidence of the need for fortification of atta with calcium and iron in order to ‎overcome the shortage of these two important minerals.‎