Food Craving And Aversion Among First Time Pregnant Women In Selected Health Facilities In Enugu Metropolis Enugu State

ABSTRACT

This study was aimed at examining the food craving and aversion among first time pregnant

women in selected health facilities in Enugu metropolis. The objectives of this study were to

determine the type of food first time pregnant women crave for or have aversion to, identify

their reasons for their specific food craving and aversion, determine the first time pregnant

women’s awareness of the implication of food craving and aversion in pregnancy and to

identify measures taken by first time pregnant women to substitute for food craving and

aversion in order to meet up with their required nutritional needs. Cross sectional descriptive

research design was used for this study. A sample size of 366 respondents who met the

inclusion criteria were drawn from the target population of 2000 first time pregnant women

using Taro Yameni’s formular. Proportional stratified sampling method was used to select a

representative sample size from each randomly selected health facilities and convenience

sampling technique was used to reach the respondent. Data was collected using researchers

developed questionnaire with a reliability of 0.87. Data collected was analyzed with the help

of International Business Machine Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.

Descriptive statistic which include frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were

used to analyze and answer research questions. Hypotheses were tested using Pearson Chisquare;

level of significance was set at P less than 0.05. The result of the study showed that

majority(74.8%) of respondents crave for or averse to at least one food item and the type of

food craved for were fruits. The type of food aversed to are beans based products. Majority

(42.6%) of the respondents indicated that they do not know most of the effect of food craving

and aversion on the health of mother and fetus. Majority (52.7%) of the first time pregnant

women do nothing to substitute for food nutrients needed in pregnancy when experiencing

food craving and aversion. Based on these findings, it was concluded that first time

pregnancy women craved for or averse to at least one food item and majority of the first time

pregnancy were not aware of the implication of food craving and aversion in pregnancy. It is

recommended that health personnel/nutritionist should be encouraged to educate pregnant

women especially the first time pregnant women on nutritional needs during pregnancy and

should involve men in nutritional education bearing in mind of male dominance in certain

culture and tradition.