Effect of Targeted Food Supplementation and Services in the Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Project on Women and Their Pregnancy Outcomes (Original Papers) (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION An important issue facing the international health and nutrition communities is the extent to which intervention programmes affect pregnancy outcomes. While some analyses of existing data raise serious questions about the efficacy of interventions (1,2), others argue on the basis of research findings that there is sufficient ground to proceed with such activities (3-5). This is particularly the case when women who are seriously calorie-deficient and/or have a low body mass index (BMI) are studied (6-8). BMI is defined as weight (kg)/height (m) (2). When women with low BMI are supplemented with food during pregnancy, there is some possibility that regression to the mean will take place and that these women will gain more weight and fat during pregnancy, perhaps at the expense of foetal growth, than women who are not chronically energy-deficient (3,7).