Nutrition Counselling:An Effective Measure to Improve Maternal and Child Nutrition and Health

To evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition counselling along with multiple strategy community intervention provided to pregnant women who have registered in Mother and Child Care Unit of Civil Hospital, Ludhiana, a total of 60 pregnant women in the age group of 20-40 years during 1^st trimester of pregnancy were selected. The subjects were divided into two groups (Control with multiple strategy community intervention and Experimental with nutrition counselling + multiple strategy community intervention). Nutrition counselling with a holistic approach through lectures, discussions, power point presentation and demonstrations was imparted to the subjects for 5 months. The findings revealed that dietary intake of various food groups and nutrient intake of energy, protein, vitamin C, folic acid, calcium and iron significantly (P≤0.05) increased during post intervention in the experimental group but the diet still remained inadequate. A significant (P≤0.05) increase was observed in the mean haemoglobin level of the subjects from 9.22±0.75 g/dl to 10.19±0.85 g/dl in the experimental group. All the anthropometric indices of the neonates in the experimental group were significantly (P≤0.05) higher than the control group. The study recommends that counselling along with multiple strategy community intervention prove to be an effective measure to achieve maternal and child health.