NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF FOLIC ACID CONSUMPTION AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN ATTENDING ANTENATAL URBAN MATERNITY KOFAR RAN BAUCHI, BAUCHI STATE

ABSTRACT Nutrition knowledge stands as a cornerstone in facilitating informed dietary choices, thereby profoundly impacting overall health and lifestyle outcomes. Malnutrition often correlates with deficient nutritional knowledge, highlighting the critical need for comprehensive understanding in this domain. An estimated 2 million peoples in Nigeria suffer from malnutrition. The States in northern Nigeria are the most affected by the two forms of malnutrition – stunting and wasting. High rates of malnutrition pose significant public health and development challenges for the country. Stunting, in addition to an increased risk of death, is also linked to poor cognitive development, a lowered performance in education and low productivity in adulthood. The Purpose of the study is to assess the Nutritional knowledge and practice of folic acid consumption among pregnant women attending antenatal urban Maternity Kofar Ran Bauchi and the specific objectives are: to access the socio economic demography of the respondents, to assess the nutritional knowledge of pregnant women regarding folic acid rich foods, to evaluate the dietary patterns of folic acid rich foods among pregnant women, to identify the factors influencing nutritional knowledge and dietary patterns. The study will be conducted on pregnant women at Maternity Kofar Ran Bauchi, Bauchi State. The target is to assess folic acid consumption of pregnant women attends Maternity Kofar Ran Bauchi, Bauchi State. 16-and 30s years will be the Targeted Population, with 2020 estimate population of 205 (Medical Director,202024). The total numbers of questionnaires wer205 copies, The sampling techniques to be used in this study will be both stratified sampling and multistage simple random sampling which will carried out in four stages. In this study, all the respondents were aware of folic acid, two thirds had good knowledge and there was good uptake among most of the respondents but the proportion that were aware of and took folic acid during the peri-conceptional period was very low. Health education on folic acid and its benefits should be done by health care workers during antenatal clinic visits. This would help in sensitizing the women on preconception folic acid and could improve uptake when planning for subsequent pregnancies. It is also necessary to educate members of the community on the importance of periconceptional folic acid.