Maternal anemia – an important determinant of low birth weight babies – An observational study from central India

Abstract

Introduction: A baby’s weight at birth is a strong indicator of maternal and newborn health and nutrition. Among the various factors affecting the birth weight, anemia during pregnancy still has been found to have a significant effect on weight as well as maturity of the baby. 1 Objective: Present study is an attempt to find out the impact of corrected maternal anemia on the perinatal outcome, assessed in terms of birth weight and gestational age in comparison to babies born to mothers with anemia during pregnancy and at the time of delivery. Materials and Methods: Total 144 pregnant women of 20±4 weeks of gestation with singleton pregnancy attending OPD of Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology from January 2015 to December 2015 were enrolled in our study. Antenatal mothers with hemoglobin level between 7–10 gm% constituted our study group, and were supplemented with hematinics. Perinatal outcome in terms of birth weight and gestational age was assessed in babies of mother with improved anemia and compared with babies delivered to mother with moderate anemia at the time of delivery. Results: Out of 144 registered~63.8% women had moderate anemia, which constituted our study group. On supplementation with hematinics to these antenatal mothers, improvement in mean hemoglobin was reported to be from 8.4 gm% to 11.4 gm%. On comparing Perinatal outcome of this group with babies of anaemic mother, there was statistically significant increase in low birth weight babies of 27.8% (p< 0.0023). No significant impact of maternal anemia on gestational age was appreciated in our study. Conclusion: Anemic mothers are at increased risk of delivering low birth weight babies, which again is an important determinant of survival and quality of life of a child. Positive impact of improvement of maternal anemia on birth weight of babies can be considered as an effective antenatal intervention taken to improve health of our newborns and their mothers.