The current large-scale nutrition-supplementation
programmes for pregnant women and young children
provide good opportunities for the research community
to answer some of the unsolved issues. A large
community-based randomized trial with combinations
of food and micronutrient supplements to pregnant
women is currently underway in Matlab, Bangladesh,
where pre-pregnancy weight measurements, careful
monitoring and assessment over the entire pregnancy
cycle are enabled by the running Health and
Demographic Surveillance System. Hopefully, that trial
and other future studies can improve the knowledge base
for nutrition interventions in pregnancy.