ASSESSMENT OF IRON DEFICIENCY IN PREGNANT WOMEN BY DETERMINING IRON STATUS
Abstract
Background: Pregnant women constitute a high risk group for iron deficiency. Maternal irondeficiency and particularly iron deficiency anaemia may be associated with detrimental effects onmaternal and infant function and particularly with a higher risk of preterm delivery and delivery oflow birth weight neonates. Objective of this study was to assess and compare the iron status ofnormal healthy non-pregnant women with that of pregnant women of Hazara Division. Methods:This study was conducted at Faculty of Health Sciences, Hazara University, and Ayub MedicalCollege, Abbottabad from 1st March to 31st August 2006. Altogether 120 women, 90 pregnant atvarious stages of pregnancy and 30 non-pregnant women as control group were included in thisstudy by convenience sampling. Their iron status was assessed by determination of haemoglobin(Hb), Serum ferritin, Serum-iron, Total Iron Binding Capacity (TIBC), Unsaturated Iron BindingCapacity (UIBC), and Percentage saturation of transferrin. Data generated on these variables weresubjected to ANOVA and correlation analysis. Results: The salient finding of this study is asignificant decrease in Hb, Serum ferritin, Serum iron, percentage saturation of transferrin and asignificant increase in values of TIBC and a pronounced increase in UIBC in 2nd and 3rd trimestercompared to 1st trimester in iron deficient pregnant women. The mean values of Hb, SF, andFe/TIBC% were significantly lower in the cases than in the control and significantly higher values ofTIBC and UIBC were observed in the cases compared to controls. Significant correlations wereobserved for TIBC, UIBC and Fe/TIBC% against serum iron in different trimesters of pregnancy.Conclusion: A high percentage of the pregnant women are iron deficient due to factors such as highparity, poor dietary habits and socioeconomic status.Keywords: Iron-deficiency, pregnancy, Anaemia, Ferritin, TIBC, UIBC, TransferrinReferences
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