Journal of Kerman University of Medical Sciences (Dec 1996)
Nutritional anemias in pregnant women
Abstract
the aim of this cross sectional study was to determine anemias due to deficiency of iron,vitamin B12 and folate in pregnant women,who were refered to Shahid doctor mofateh hospital in varamin.in this study hemoglobin value(<11g/dl) was used as the determinant of anemia,therefore,the study was performed on 251 pregnant women.the proportions of women having abortions and cesarean sections were 10% and 14.7%,respectively.in this study,serum folate,RBC folate and serum B12 were determined using RIDA test.based on the hemoglobin (HB),hematocrit(HCT),and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) values,26.1%,21.3% and 53% of the mothers were anemic,respectively.based on serum iron,TIBC and transferin saturation rate,serum folate ,RBC folate and serum B12,15.4%,67.5%,49.2%,89.7%,27.4% and 22.2% of the mothers were anemic respectively.the prevalence of anemia due to vitamin B12 deficiency in abortive women(37.5%) were significantly higher than in non-abortive (21%) group(p<0.05).the prevalence of anemia on the basis of serum folate in the abortion group was significantly higher than in the women how had abortion were suffering from serum falate deficinency of which 70.8% were suffering from severe serum folate deficiency,and 29.2% were suffering from a milder form of the deficiency,while 31.8% were suffering from deficiency of folate in RBC,s.the results of this study showed that supplementary folate has to be administered during pregnancy period.
