Maternal Anemia and Risk of Small for Gestational Age

Abstract

Introduction: Anemia in pregnancy results in impaired oxygen transport to the fetus and may result in intrauterine growth Retardation, low birth weight, small for gestational size, and neonatal death. Objective: This study is to assess the risk of small for gestational age in anemic pregnant females. Methods: This is a prospective cross-sectional study, Data was gathered from April 2019- to July 2020, all pregnant females registered in the gynecology department of Life-line hospital during the study were enrolled after signing informed consent. After laboratory investigation participants were divided into two groups, Group A had non-anemic and group B had anemic females. SPSS version 20 was used to analyze the data. Continuous data is interpreted as mean and standard deviation. To assess the correlation between categorical variables chi-square test was performed, p-value < 0.05 was considered as significant. Results: A total of 500 participants were included in the study, 21-25 years mothers were reported as non-anemic and anemic with frequency of 165 and 100 respectively, While 25-30 years were 218 and 107 respectively. Gravidity of participants indicated a higher prevalence of anemia in mothers of 1 – 3 children with 156/302 participants falling in the category of parity 1-3. To assess the odds of getting SGA as a fetal outcome in anemic mothers, the OR test was performed and the result indicated a positive ratio (1.4) Conclusion: This study indicated a higher prevalence rate of small for gestational age in anemic mothers as compared to non-anemic, expressing the need for better nutritional and psychological assessments of reproductive-age females in Pakistan.