Pregnant Client Case Study

• Discuss the nutritional needs of a pregnant client. What challenges are there to meet the needs of pregnant clients specifically related to socioeconomic and/or cultural practices? Identify at least two. Use the nursing process.

Maintaining good eating habit is important regardless of a person’s life cycle. During pregnancy such habit is even more necessary as the mother is also feeding the fetus. Therefore, there has been some guidelines set forth to inform pregnant woman and encourage them to maintain daily intakes of nutrients that are essentials to both the mother and the baby. According to American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynelogy (ACOG) 2015, a woman should chose food from all the five food groups such as grains, vegetables, fruits, proteins, and dairy. Oils and fats also provide

ACOG (2015) advises the intake of vitamins such as folic acid, vitamin D, vitamin A, iron, omega-3 and calcium during pregnancy. Fish such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tile fish should be consumed during pregnancy due to high mercury contents; tuna fish should be limited to 6 ounces per week to help prevent birth defect. The pregnant patient should avoid food that maybe contaminated with literiosis such as unpasteurized milk, cold processed meats, refrigerated smoked seafood, raw or undercooked eggs, seafood, and meat (ACOG, 2015). There are many challenges that might keep the pregnant client from meeting her nutritional needs in regard to finance socioeconomic. The financial challenge lies in the inability to afford healthy food and vitamins. Moreover, the financially disadvantaged woman might lack in fund to seek prenatal care where she could be educated about her nutritional needs as a pregnant woman. Therefore, she might not know otherwise. Furthermore, there clients who