Nutrition During Pregnancy, Lactation and Infancy

In many countries in South and East Asia, most diets are defective in quality, even when there is not a severe shortage of food. They do. not provide an adequate quantity of essential nutrients. One of the most severe deficiencies is in good quality protein. The solution to this problem is to produce and provide the right kinds of foods and to establish national food production policies which should make it possible to plan a better balanced diet based on sound nutritional principles and modern knowledge of nutritional requirements. Some degree of undernutrition, over-nutrition, or malnutrition occurs in most European countries. The consumption of an unbalanced diet may be due to low incomes or to lack of nutritional knowledge and ignorance of the special needs of large groups of people such as pregnant and lactating women and infants. In families where money available for food purchasing is limited, a suitable diet can be selected if the housewife has more knowledge of good feeding practices. Many investigations have shown that there is a relation between poor diets during pregnancy and prematurity and susceptibility of the infant to infection and other hazards. An adequate diet in developed countries for the pregnant and lactating woman is given. In developing countries where these foods are not available, mixtures of native cereal, legumes, and other plant proteins should be used and if available fish , eggs, poultry, sheep, goats, or other meats. Native vegetables, fruits, rice, cassava, or bread should be used to complete the diet. Breast feeding should be encouraged in all areas of the world. The length of the breast feeding period should be for a longer period in developing countries. Special mixtures of high quality protein foods suitable for the infant at time of weaning should be made available. Proper sanitation for clean food is needed. Finally, the infant must have love and personal attention of his mother for his mental and physical well being.