Basically, the purpose of health education is to eliminate
undesirable behaviors and replace them by appropriate
and productive behavior leading to healthy life
(9). This study sought to answer the question of whether
nutrition education can influence a positive change to
improve levels of nutritional knowledge of pregnant
women. The present study showed significant improvements
in awareness level of pregnant women who received
at least two educational sessions on healthy nutrition
in which it was significantly increased from 3%
before intervention to 31% after the nutritional education
intervention (P < 0.001). These results are similar
to those found by Verbeke (2007) who found that education
on nutrition and food consumption can resolve
safety issues in population (14 , 15). The present study
also showed that the nutritional knowledge of pregnant
women before intervention was very weak except
for employed women. This result is in agreement with a
recent reported survey (14). Another important finding
was that in obese women, the weak, moderate and well
educational knowledge levels after training were significantly
increased by 19.3%, 7.7 % and 29.9 % respectively.
A possible explanation for this might be that obese
women compared with other women have given more
attention to training. Poboeilk and colleagues have
mentioned that pregnant women are more susceptible
for obesity despite lower consumption of energy and
other nutrients than standard during pregnancy period
(16). Nutritional education programs during pregnancy
especially for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and
non-breastfeeding postpartum women are helpful steps
to reduce material and spiritual costs in family and
community. Nutrition education also is an appropriate
intervention for food insecurity (3). The present study
was limited by selecting participants from urban areas
and few numbers of study settings. Pregnant women
living in rural areas have more needs for nutritional
education interventions. Despite these limitations, the
study offers insight implication that nutrition education
intervention can have a positive effect on nutritional
awareness of pregnant women independent of their
age or literacy and in obese women in particular.