Doctor Do Thi Ngoc Diep, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Nutrition Centre gave out the warning at a seminar on pregnancy nutrition held in Ho Chi Minh City on October 30.

She added that the deficiency of blood, iodine, vitamin A and zinc among pregnancy women in Vietnam, particularly Ho Chi Minh City, is serious.

Blood deficiency is the most serious in the northwestern and southern central regions. A survey of 400 women in the age of childbearing in HCM City showed most of them knew little about nutrition during pregnancy and the importance of nutrient to the development of foetus and infants.

Meanwhile, Dr. Carol L. Cheatham from the nutritional research institute of the University of North California cited a global research paper that 42 percent of pregnant women in the world had blood deficiency due to a lack of iron. Blood deficiency due to lack of iron killed 115,000 pregnant women a year.

Participants stressed the need to improve women’s knowledge of nutrition during pregnancy.