Nutrition Status of Lactating Mothers

Developing country lactating mothers are facing malnutrition issues during pregnancy and post pregnancy, which severely affects the health of both the child and mother. In this survey, nutritional status of different economical grouped mother is assessed in Bankura district, West Bengal, India. Based on the economic status, the lactating mothers are divided into two major groups, such as, a) Higher and, b) Lower income groups. It is decided to carry out the analysis with three approaches, such as, i) Interview method with questionnaire, ii) Anthropometrics measurement with Body Mass Index (B.M.I) and, iii) Clinical examination. It is resulted that low economic lactating mother are facing a no. of nutrient deficiencies such as, energy intake, protein, calcium, iron etc., but the higher economic category mothers are too good to the level standardized with RDA. It is also revealed that low economic family are almost unable to give proper supplementary baby food to their baby, so it is essential to them to give breast milk to their baby all the time. So, low economic lactating mother demands something more nutritional support than high economic groups.