RELATIONSHIP FOOD INSECURITY WITH GESTATIONAL HYPERTENSION: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY

Background and Aim: The health and advancement of any society depends on the health of women, and pregnancy, delivery and its consequences have a significant impact on the health of women and the national health index. Hypertension is one of the most common adverse events in pregnancy, which increases the deaths of fetuses and mothers. Nutritional status before and during pregnancy is one of the important environmental factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship food insecurity with gestational hypertension Methods: Materials and Methods: This longitudinal study was conducted on 734 pregnant women at 24-28 wk of gestation who met the inclusion criteria. The subjects were selected using cluster sampling. The pregnant women filled out questionnaires of study and they followed up until delivery. The data collection tool included questionnaires for evaluating women’s demographic and obstetric characteristics and food insecurity. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics were used to determine frequencies, percentages. Logistic regression were run to identify the relationship between food insecurity and gestational hypertension in SPSS software, version 19.0Results: Food security was observed in 64.9% of participants while 35.1% suffered from insecurity. In this study, the prevalence of gestational hypertension in Ilam province was estimated to be 3.8%. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that there was a significant relationship between food insecurity and gestational hypertension, and the likelihood of gestational hypertension, in subjects with food insecurity was 3.3 times higher than those with food security.Conclusion: Hypertension disorders are among the most important unresolved problems in the midwifery. It seems that its risk factors are not well defined, and more studies are being done in this regard; It can also prevent such undesirable consequences through actions such as self-care, screening for nutritional problems and food insecurity, increased perinatal care

Keywords:

Food insecurity , food security , Pregnancy , gestational hypertension