Research Journal of Food Science and Nutrition

Maternal nutrition is an important public health problem in low-income countries around the world and mothers from this setting are considered as a nutritionally vulnerable group. Due to the nursing process, mothers are subjected to nutritional stresses. Frequent pregnancies followed by lactation and poor feeding habits result in poor birth outcomes and increase morbidity and mortality risk of mothers and their children.  The objective of this review is to identify systematically, appraise and synthesize the best available evidence on the maternal feeding practice and its outcome in developing countries. Electronic search of Medline, Pub Med, Health Inter-network access to Research Initiative (HINARI), and Google Scholar databases were conducted. Results of interest were maternal feeding practice and its outcome. Many studies concluded that the most frequent proximate causes of maternal malnutrition include inadequate food intake, poor nutritional quality of diets, frequent infections and short inter-pregnancy intervals. Majority of the reviewed articles also reported that in developing world women are more likely to suffer from nutritional deficiency than men. The feeding practices, dietary intakes and nutritional status of women in most developing countries were short of the national and international recommendations. The diets of women and mothers are often overlooked socioeconomic conditions, cultural beliefs, taboos and misconceptions are the major determinant factors for poor maternal feeding practice, which increase not only women’s chance of being malnourished but increases the chance of intrauterine growth retardation and childhood malnutrition. The effect of poor dietary habits and feeding practices of mothers do not end with poor birth outcomes and nutritional status of the newborn but may extend on influencing children eating behavior, which results with poor health and nutritional status of children. Dietary counseling in order to achieve optimal nutritional situation of women through behavioral change programs, when appropriate and a need for more comprehensive applied research studies as a means to find scientific solution are recommended.