nutrients Article Maternal Dietary Intakes, Red Blood Cell Indices and Risk for Anemia in the First, Second and Third Trimesters of Pregnancy and at Predelivery Faith Agbozo 1,2,* , Abdulai Abubakari 3 , Joyce Der 4 and Albrecht Jahn 2 1 Department of Family and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Health and Allied Health Sciences, Ho, Ghana. Private Mail Bag 31 Ho, Ghana 2 Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, University Hospital Heidelberg Germany. Im Neuenheimer Feld 130.3, 60120 Heidelberg, Germany;
[email protected] 3 Public Health Department, University for Development Studies, Tamale Ghana. P. O. Box TL 1350 Tamale, Ghana;
[email protected] 4 Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Health and Allied Health Sciences, Ho, Ghana. Private Mail Bag 31 Ho, Ghana;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +233-262-165-005 Received: 17 February 2020; Accepted: 12 March 2020; Published: 15 March 2020 Abstract: As anemia remains a major public health problem in Ghana, we examined the effect of dietary intakes, and antenatal care (ANC) practices on red cell indices and anemia prevalence during the pregnancy continuum for 415 women. Dietary history was taken using the Food and Agriculture Organization minimum dietary diversity indicator for women (MDD-W). Intake of 5 food groups ≥ was a proxy for micronutrient adequacy. Odds for anemia and meeting the MDD-W were estimated using ordinal and binary logistic regressions respectively. Intakes of 41.4% were micronutrient inadequate. At any time point in pregnancy, 54.4% were anemic (mild = 31.1%; moderate = 23.1%; severe = 0.2%) with 10%-point variation across the first (57.3%), second (56.4%) and third (53.3%) trimesters and pre-delivery (47.7%); 27.8% were anemic throughout pregnancy while 17.1% were never anemic.