Study on The scenario of nutrition in pregnancy and Bangladesh

Abstract

A healthy balanced diet is important at all times in life, but particularly so during pregnancy. The maternal diet must provide sufficient calorie and nutrients to meet the mother’s usual requirements, as well as the needs of the growing fetus, and enable the mother to lay down stores of nutrients required for fetal development as well as for lactation. Consequently, deficiency causes neonatal abnormalities and mortality. Questionnaire based 82 breeding cat’s data were collected randomly and then analyzed. Among them, feeding of homemade food practiced in 53.66% (44), commercial in 13.41% (11) and both homemade and commercial feeding practiced in 32.93% (27). In 59.76% (49) cases found pet owners provide commercially available vitamins and minerals during pregnant periods, where 40.24% (33) owners avoid providing any supplements to their pets. Highest percentage (42.69%/35) of first time matted female cat found in between 7-12 months of age and lowest (9.76%/8) in more than 18 months of age. Complications during pregnancy and at the time of parturition are very common in cats and in present study, 21.95 % (18) pregnant cats were experienced dystocia. The average litter size in cats is 4.0 kittens per litter but varies among breeds. Medium litter size (3-4) found in 56.10% (46) cases, large size (>4) in 35.56% (29) cases and small size litter in 8.54% (7) cases. The study found an overall 76.83% neonatal death where 18.29% were in in vivo death, 34.15% in in vitro death and 24.39% in both cases. Congenital anomalies occur when kittens do not develop properly in utero and congenital anomalies were seen in 15.85% (13) cases and malnourished kitten also found in 42.68% (35) cases. These results exhibit the need for owner awareness about the requirements of nutrient supplements during pregnancy as well as establishment of prophylaxis thus increasing life expectancy in the pet population.