Resumo

RACHED DE PAOLI, Ingrid; AZUAJE SANCHEZ, Arelis  e  HENRIQUEZ PEREZ, Gladys. Estado nutricional en gestantes de una comunidad menos privilegiada de Caracas. An Venez Nutr [online]. 2002, vol.15, n.2, pp.94-104. ISSN 0798-0752.

In order to determine socio-economic, psychologic, dietetic, biomedical and biochemical characteristics, as well as the nutritional status of the study group, a well as to analyze the association between the evaluated variables and categories of the nutritional status, 200 pregnant women from the Antímano Parrish who were evaluated at the Centro de Atención Nutricional Infantil "Antímano" (CANIA). Socio-economic, psychological, dietetic, clinical, anthropometric and biochemical evaluations were performed on each one of them. The diagnosis of the nutritional status was made using tests clinical and anthropometric indicators. The descriptive statistics, Levene test, ANOVA and chi square were used for the statistical analysis. 52.5% of the pregnant women were well-nourished, 26.5% were clinically undernourished and 21.0 % were overweight and obese. The poverty line reported 16.0% non-poor, 42.6% poor and 10.6 % critically poor. Pregnant women showed symptoms of depression (36.4%) and anxiety (34,5%) in the clinical interview. Their eating habits were inadequate (98.5%) as well as their eating behavior (82.5%). The associated pathology and the biochemical alteration most frequently found was dental cavities (64.5%) and low calcium serum (42.2%) respectively. There was no significant association between the socio-economic, psychological, bio-medical and biochemical variables, and the nutritional status (p-value < 0.05). The increase of the frequency of undernourishment during pregnancy, particularly in teenagers, and the higher prevalence of overweight and obesity, show the need to evaluate in a systematic manner the nutritional status in pregnant women.

Palavras-chave : Nutritional status; pregnancy; teenager; adult.