For many women, dietary deficiency starts in childhood and affects the whole course of their lives. Girls who receive chronically inadequate diets (Box 3) grow into malnourished women who suffer from anaemia and protein energy deficiencies. Their physical development may be impaired, making childbirth difficult and dangerous. Women in poor general health are at high risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth.

Half of all pregnant women in the developing world suffer from iron deficiencies in their diets, a problem made worse by frequent unplanned pregnancies. In Karakalpakstan, Central Asia, 90 per cent of all women suffer from chronic anaemia. Severe anaemia plays a part in up to 40 per cent of the estimated 600,000 maternal deaths each year in the developing world. Low birth-weight babies, often born to malnourished women, are in turn at greater risk of poor general health and more vulnerable to infection. FAO reports that over the course of the past two decades the amount of iron in developing country diets has actually fallen. The most dramatic drop in iron intake occurred in south and southeast Asia, the very regions where the average calorie intake soared as the Green Revolution took root.

Nursing mothers provide their infants with the most complete and perfect diet available: mothers' milk contains all the vitamins and minerals that babies need. No other single food source can match it. Chronically malnourished women are often unable to breastfeed, so both they and the children suffer. As food producers and providers, these women are at a double disadvantage.

Attitude and custom as much as the lack of nutritious food work against adequate diets. More must be done to educate families and communities in good nutritional practices and how to make the best use of the food available. In particular, more could be done to avoid practices which deprive women and their children of good sources of nutrition when they most need it, for example during pregnancy or lactation. Adequate nutrition is essential to reproductive health.

More could also be done to support women during their pregnancies and afterward -- too often, pregnancy and its consequences are taken for granted. Many difficulties and dangers could easily be avoided, if women knew how and if husbands and communities would support them. The most obvious step is to equip women with the information and the means to time pregnancy as and when they wish. Good reproductive health promotes good nutrition.

As countries struggle to feed increasing numbers of people, planners and policy-makers must acknowledge both women's vital role as food producers and their contributions to the health and nutritional status of their families and communities. Development programmes should encourage the coordination of population and agricultural policies. Support for women in both productive and reproductive roles will improve both reproductive health and nutrition at the level where improvement is most needed--that of the family and the community.