Methods	Protocol for a cluster randomized trial in the peri‐urban areas of Dodoma City, the capital of the Dodoma region and the national capital of Tanzania
Participants	Inclusion criteria: Pregnant women at second trimester pregnancy (gestational age from 13 weeks and above) living in peri‐urban areas of Dodoma City at the time of data collection and willing to participate will be included in the study. Exclusion criteria: Pregnant women with special medical conditions, such as epilepsy, sickle cell anemia, diabetes mellitus, hypo‐ or hyperthyroidism, malignancy disease, hypertension, human immunodeficiency virus, antepartum hemorrhage, renal disease and severe anemia will be excluded from the study.
Interventions	Intervention—Nutrition education Description: Nutrition education will be delivered by a research team member using a developed education material. The education material (see Supporting Information: File 1) has been developed by a research team after doing an intensive literature review from previous studies [26, 27]. The developed educational material has been modified and translated to the Swahili language to suit our environment. Each pregnant woman in the interventional group will receive nutritional education. Nutrition education consists of the following: definition of anemia, symptoms of anemia, causes for anemia, effects of anemia, behavioral and dietary risks for developing anemia and prevention of anemia. Nutritional education will be delivered during all three phases of the study. The first phase will be delivered at the time of baseline study where a hard copy of education material will be provided to each participant for self‐learning. The second phase will be followed 1 month after the first, and the last phase will be carried out 1 month after the second phase. Hard copy of training material will be provided only during the first phase (baseline survey), but the same education material will be used to train pregnant women about nutritional education for all three phases of the study. The nutritional education training will be provided in groups of 10–11 women. Sessions will be interactive and are expected to last for 45–60 min. All participants in the interventional and control arms will receive one tablet of FEFO (200 mg of dried Ferrous Sulphateþ0.25 mg Folic Acid) supplement once daily as per ANC national guidelines [28] during the entire course of the study period. The FEFO supplements will be given on a monthly dose basis starting at the baseline survey. Nutrition counseling messaging: Nutrition education consists of the following: definition of anemia, symptoms of anemia, causes for anemia, effects of anemia, behavioral and dietary risks for developing anemia and prevention of anemia. Intervention adapted to local context: Not reported. Women empowerment approach: Complete empowerment model Control Description: Supplementation of FEFO tablets, malaria prophylaxis, de‐worming
Outcomes	The primary outcome of this study is Hemoglobin concentration.
Notes	Funding: This work is supported by the University of Dodoma through the programme of Junior Academic Staff Research Proposal (JAS) grand award. The grant will also assist the data collection process. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.