Dietary Diversity is Associated With Maternal Anemia and Key Prenatal Outcomes in Ethiopia

Background: Maternal and child under-nutrition is the underlying cause of death for millions across the globe. Anemia during pregnancy is among the leading nutritional disorders with serious short and long term consequences to both the mother and fetus. Objective: Examine the effect of dietary diversity on maternal anemia, nutritional status and key pregnancy outcomes of pregnancy. Methods: A prospective cohort study design, involving a total of 432 eligible pregnant women, in their second antenatal care visit was conducted between August 2014 to March, 2015. The individual dietary diversity Score (IDDS) was used as the exposure variable to select, enroll and follow the mothers. Epi-data, SPSS and STATA software are used to enter and analyze the data. Chi-square test, independent 't'-test, and GLM are used to calculate risk, association and differences between key variables at P \< 0.05