Consumption of Vitamin A Rich Foods Among Pregnant Women

The indicator measures the proportion of pregnant women who consumed any vitamin A-rich food in the past day or night. It does not measure the quantity. Vitamin A deficiency causes night blindness and increases the risk of maternal mortality.

There are two ways of gaining the required data:

   > extracting it from your assessment of pregnant women’s overall dietary diversity

   > assessing the consumption of vitamin A rich foods only

A) Extracting the Data from Overall Dietary Diversity Survey

1) If your survey involves collecting data for Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W) indicator, ensure that all consumed meals are initially categorized into the first fourteen food groups listed in FAO’s Guidelines for Measuring Household and Individual Dietary Diversity (page 8). Later, when calculating MDD-W, you can group them to the 10 food groups required by the MDD-W indicator.

2) Assess the number of pregnant women who consumed any of the foods included in the vitamin A rich food groups listed in FAO’s Guidelines (page 27).

3) To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of pregnant women who consumed a vitamin A rich food the previous day or night by the total number of interviewed women. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage. 

B) Assessing the Consumption of Vitamin A Rich Foods Only

1) Follow the same methodology used by MDD-W for assessing the foods eaten during the previous day or night. However, instead of categorizing the consumed foods into the 10 food groups required by MDD-W, use the first fourteen categories listed in FAO’s Guidelines (page 8).

2) If a pregnant woman consumed any of the foods included in the vitamin A rich food groups listed in FAO’s Guidelines (page 27), she can be considered as having “consumed a vitamin A rich food”. 

3) To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of pregnant women who consumed a vitamin A rich food the previous day or night by the total number of interviewed pregnant women. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage. 

Disaggregate the data by wealth.

1) The data required for this indicator is prone to seasonal variations. Do your best to collect baseline and endline data in the same period of a year; otherwise it is very likely that they will not be comparable.

2) Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin and therefore needs to be consumed with fat in order to be effectively absorbed. Consider including in your survey questions assessing whether the vitamin A rich foods consumed by the woman were eaten with or without fats. For example, “Was the spinach you ate prepared with our without any fats or oils?”

3) Make sure that you do not collect data during the fasting periods (such as pre-Easter or Ramadan) or during fasting days.