Nutrient adequacy of pregnant women in Africa; a scoping review protocol

Adequate maternal nutrition is critical for maternal health, foetal development, and pregnancy outcomes. However, pregnant women in Africa often fail to meet the recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for macro- and micronutrients, contributing to poor pregnancy and birth outcomes. Literature on maternal nutrient intake in Africa is fragmented and lacks a comprehensive synthesis of nutrient intake data among pregnant women. This scoping review aims at identifying and mappin existing evidence on nutrient intake among pregnant women in Africa. This review will adhere to the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines and a systematic search will be conducted across MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, Web of Science and CINAHL (EBSCO) databases. The search will be limited to articles published in English from 2014 to 2024. Screening and data extraction will be performed by two independent reviewers. The extracted data will be analysed using descriptive analysis and presented in figures and tabular summaries to identify trends and gaps.Ethical approval is not required as this review will only use publicly available published data. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journal publication and scientifice conferences.