Maternal and Pediatric Nutrition
Open Access

Upcoming Issue: Nutritional Status

Swati Jain^{* *}Correspondence: Swati Jain, Ph.D., Department of Life sciences, University of Delhi, Delhi, India, Tel: +919951416655, Email:

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The nutritional status, particularly from the time of preconception till the period of lactation including pregnancy has a profound impact on the health and immunity of women and her child. Women's nutritional sufficiency is important for their general and reproductive health, fruitful conception, normal embryogenesis, development of the fetus, as well as the future growth and health status of their child. Child malnutrition and underweight or nutritional imbalance during birth have several implications on future health. The risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart diseases, obesity, and hypertension can be traced to the fetal nutritional status. On the other hand, postnatal nutrition has a direct relation with the development of the brain and cognitive functions among children. Therefore, investing in the health of women and children can potentially reduce the burden of future health care expenditure, sustainability and improve productivity. Though other factors such as the environment, dietary patterns, food preferences, and lifestyle have a role in the nutrition status, supplementation of the core and important nutrients such as folic acid, iron, vitamin A and iodine substantially contribute to the nutritional wellbeing and health of women and children. Moreover, nutraceuticals also play important role in the health of women and children.

Maternal and Pediatric Nutrition Journal provides an interactive open-access communications platform for International scientists, nutritionists, clinicians, pediatricians as well as academicians for exchanging the outcomes of their systematic scientific explorations. The Journal emphasizes most of the important and fundamental aspects of maternal and pediatric nutrition including maternal stress, enteral and parenteral nutrition, nutraceuticals, nutritionrelated to chronic disease, nutrition immunology, nutrigenomics among mothers and children via diverse formats of science communications. The Journal was established in the year 2015 and is consistently publishing peer-reviewed literature on current and emerging topics of maternal and child nutrition. In this issue, the Journal has published articles about the effects of nutritional supplementation among children aged 2 to 12 years as well as on interactive effects of lifestyle, diet, and BMI on the autonomous nervous system and its functions.

Undernutrition among children leads to stunting, wasting, and underweight. Therefore, nutritional supplementation is necessitated as nutritional support is essential for growth, development, strengthening the immunity as well as to support normal physical, mental and metabolic activities among children. Chetan et al. [1], in their recent communication in this issue have reported an observational, randomized controlled post-marketing study based on over 700 Indian children grouped age-wise in order to determine the effect of oral nutritional supplementation over 6 months on the growth and development of children aged between 2 to 12 years in terms of their height, weight, and BMI. The study observed that nutritional supplementation resulted in improvement of the anthropometric parameters without causing any adverse effects. The study is of immense significance in devising strategies for nutritional improvement of the children in India as well as to frame health care policies for children in subcontinents.

Over or imbalanced nutrition among children can lead to obesity with several health implications. The metabolic role of obesity on autonomic nervous system functioning including pupillary dilation among children is scarce. Teixeira et al. [2], have reported in this issue, the outcomes of their study that included 858 children. Based on the percent fat criteria, obesity in the range of 7 to 16 percent was reportedly observed among 51 percent children while the average dilation velocity was substantially higher among obese children. The study established a correlation between obesity and dysautonomia of the autonomous nervous system among children. This study attains significance in evaluating the interactive effects of lifestyle, diet, and BMI in children and their implications in the functioning of the autonomous nervous system.

I herewith extend my best wishes and express my gratitude to the contributing authors, reviewers, and editorial members for the timely production of this issue. We also expect feedback from our readers regarding further information requirements and to identify further areas of nutritional science, so that we can bring forth issues focused on such topics in the future. The Journal is gearing to produce special issues on recent and emerging topics of research including the role of socio-economic factors in imparting timely and adequate nutrition among women and children in developing countries as well as other remedial measures to combat nutritional disorders worldwide.

References

1. Chetan M, Bhasin JS, Khadilkar V, Kochar IPS, Pai U, Mittal G, et al. (2021) Effectiveness of Nutritional Supplement in Growth and Development of Children aged 2-12 years. Matern Pediatr Nutr 6:126.
2. Teixeira BG, Inês Paciência, Cavaleiro Rufo J, Mendes F, Farraia M, Padrão P, et al. (2021) Association between Obesity and Autonomic Nervous System Activity in Children. Matern Pediatr Nutr 6:1.