Publication:

Maternal haemoglobin and perinatal outcome

Background Maternal anaemia is common medical disorder in developing countries. WHO defines anaemia as haemoglobin concentration of ≤11 g/dl. However, in developing countries like India, the lower limit is accepted as 10 g/dl.

Results Of 218 women, 69 had anaemia. The prevalence of anaemia was 31.65%; of which 84% had mild anaemia, 14.6% had moderate and only 1.4% had severe anaemia. Mean Hb levels were 12.04% among non-anaemic mothers and mean birth weight was 2.89 Kg whereas 9.14%, 2.18 kg in anaemic mothers respectively. In our study, 21% in anaemic group has birth weight <2.5 kg and only 0.06% in non-anaemic mothers (p<0.0012) 3.6 times higher. The risk of IUGR was 3.77 times higher, low APGAR score at 1 min was 3.8 times higher (p<0.0001), meconium stained liquor was 2.3 times higher and NICU admissions 2.96 times higher in anaemic mothers than non-anaemic mothers.

Conclusions Anaemia in pregnancy is one of the causes of poor perinatal outcome. Maternal anaemia is associated with the high risk of low birth weight, IUGR babies, low APGAR scores and NICU admissions and overall increase in perinatal morbidity. Hence proper antenatal care and counseling can reduce occurrence of anaemia in pregnancy.