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Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia
INTRODUCTION: Most communities, rural or urban, have taboos regarding foods to avoid during pregnancy, and most have local explanations for why certain foods should be avoided. Such taboos may have health benefits, but they also can have large nutritional and health costs to mothers and fetuses. As...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7553351/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33048926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239451 |
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author | Tela, Freweini Gebrearegay Gebremariam, Lemlem Weldegerima Beyene, Selemawit Asfaw |
author_facet | Tela, Freweini Gebrearegay Gebremariam, Lemlem Weldegerima Beyene, Selemawit Asfaw |
author_sort | Tela, Freweini Gebrearegay |
collection | PubMed |
description | INTRODUCTION: Most communities, rural or urban, have taboos regarding foods to avoid during pregnancy, and most have local explanations for why certain foods should be avoided. Such taboos may have health benefits, but they also can have large nutritional and health costs to mothers and fetuses. As such, understanding local pregnancy food taboos is an important public health goal, especially in contexts where food resources are limited. Despite this, information regarding food taboos is limited in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study assessed food taboos, related misconceptions, and associated factors among pregnant women in Northern Ethiopia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 332 pregnant women in antenatal care (ANC) follow-up at selected private clinics in Mekelle city, Tigray, Ethiopa, recruited between April and May, 2017. Using a semi-structured questionnaire, we assessed whether respondents’ observed food taboos, what types of foods they avoided, their perceived reasons for avoidance, diversity of respondents’ diets during pregnancy, and respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics. After reporting frequency statistics for categorical variables and central tendencies (mean and standard deviation) of continuous variables, bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the socio-demographic factors and diet diversity associated with food taboo practices. RESULTS: Around 12% of the pregnant women avoided at least one type of food during their current pregnancy for one or more reasons. These mothers avoided eating items such as yogurt, banana, legumes, honey, and “kollo” (roasted barley and wheat). The most common reasons given for the avoidances were that the foods were (mistakenly) believed to cause: abortion; abdominal cramps in the mother and newborn; prolonged labor; or coating of the fetus’s body. Maternal education (diploma and above) (AOR: 4.55, 95% CI: 1.93, 10.31) and marital status (single) were found to be negatively associated (protective factors) with observances of pregnancy food taboos. Approximately 79% of respondents had pregnancy diets that were insufficiently diverse, although we did not find any statistical evidence that this was associated with adhering to food taboos. CONCLUSION: The misconceptions related to pregnancy food taboos should be discouraged insofar as they may restrict women’s consumption of nutritious foods which could support maternal health and healthy fetal development. Health providers should counsel pregnant women and their husbands about appropriate pregnancy nutrition during ANC visits. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7553351 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-75533512020-10-21 Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia Tela, Freweini Gebrearegay Gebremariam, Lemlem Weldegerima Beyene, Selemawit Asfaw PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: Most communities, rural or urban, have taboos regarding foods to avoid during pregnancy, and most have local explanations for why certain foods should be avoided. Such taboos may have health benefits, but they also can have large nutritional and health costs to mothers and fetuses. As such, understanding local pregnancy food taboos is an important public health goal, especially in contexts where food resources are limited. Despite this, information regarding food taboos is limited in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study assessed food taboos, related misconceptions, and associated factors among pregnant women in Northern Ethiopia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of 332 pregnant women in antenatal care (ANC) follow-up at selected private clinics in Mekelle city, Tigray, Ethiopa, recruited between April and May, 2017. Using a semi-structured questionnaire, we assessed whether respondents’ observed food taboos, what types of foods they avoided, their perceived reasons for avoidance, diversity of respondents’ diets during pregnancy, and respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics. After reporting frequency statistics for categorical variables and central tendencies (mean and standard deviation) of continuous variables, bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the socio-demographic factors and diet diversity associated with food taboo practices. RESULTS: Around 12% of the pregnant women avoided at least one type of food during their current pregnancy for one or more reasons. These mothers avoided eating items such as yogurt, banana, legumes, honey, and “kollo” (roasted barley and wheat). The most common reasons given for the avoidances were that the foods were (mistakenly) believed to cause: abortion; abdominal cramps in the mother and newborn; prolonged labor; or coating of the fetus’s body. Maternal education (diploma and above) (AOR: 4.55, 95% CI: 1.93, 10.31) and marital status (single) were found to be negatively associated (protective factors) with observances of pregnancy food taboos. Approximately 79% of respondents had pregnancy diets that were insufficiently diverse, although we did not find any statistical evidence that this was associated with adhering to food taboos. CONCLUSION: The misconceptions related to pregnancy food taboos should be discouraged insofar as they may restrict women’s consumption of nutritious foods which could support maternal health and healthy fetal development. Health providers should counsel pregnant women and their husbands about appropriate pregnancy nutrition during ANC visits. Public Library of Science 2020-10-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7553351/ /pubmed/33048926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239451 Text en © 2020 Tela et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Tela, Freweini Gebrearegay Gebremariam, Lemlem Weldegerima Beyene, Selemawit Asfaw Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia |
title | Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia |
title_full | Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia |
title_fullStr | Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia |
title_full_unstemmed | Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia |
title_short | Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia |
title_sort | food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in mekelle city, tigray, northern ethiopia |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7553351/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33048926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239451 |
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