Abstract:
Background: Dietary Diversity is defined as the number of different food groups consumed over a given reference period. Pregnant women are nutritionally vulnerable because of the physiological demands of pregnancy and lactation and during this period the need for most nutrients are increased. Accordingly, dietary diversity during pregnancy is very crucial. However, it has been given little attention and accurate information on women’s diet and micronutrient intake is lacking. This paper therefore has assessed the dietary diversity of pregnant women and the associated factors in rural Kebeles of Bahir Dar City Administration, North-West Ethiopia. Method: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted from Novemeber 12-30, 2017. Using Simple random sampling technique 300 pregnanat women were identified and participated in the study. Pre tasted quastionare was used to collect the data and 24hour dietary recall method was employed to determine the Dietary Diversity Score of pregnant women /MDD-W/. Epi Data v. 3.1 software, and SPSS v. 23 was used to data entry and analysis. Logistics regression model were used to identify the associated factors with dietary diversity of pregnant women. Result: The mean dietary diversity score /MDD-W/ was 4.25 ± 1.03 SD. Only 35.7% of participants had adequate dietary diversity. Majority (64.3%) of pregnant women were hade inadequate dietary diversity during the preceding 24 hours. Multivariate logistics regression reviled that education level (AOR 2.14; 95% CI: 1.13-4.04), monthly income (AOR 3.73; 95% CI: 1.55-8.95) and food Security status (AOR 2.20; 95% CI: 1.09-4.27) were significantly associated with dietary diversity of pregnant women. Conclusion and Recommendation: Majority of pregnant women (64.3%) were had inadequate dietary diversity. level of education, monthly income and food security status are factors affecting dietary diversity of pregnant women. Accordingly, it is good to work on Education for female, involve women in adult literacy program and in different income generating activities, nutrition education, and improve agricultural production and productivity.