1Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal;
2Program Officer, Jhpiego, India
About half of the non-pregnant and pregnant women in India are anaemic. But the whole focus of government is on managing anaemia during pregnancy because of associated adverse consequence for both mothers and newborn. Very often, very little attention has been paid to address the problem of postpartum anaemia. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of anaemia among women six weeks after childbirth.
This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study. The haemoglobin and other indices of the iron reserve were measured among women coming to immunize their child between six to seven weeks after delivery. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with postpartum anaemia.
The prevalence of any degree of anaemia and severe anaemia at the end of the post-partum period was 54.0% and 12.5% respectively. The mean haemoglobin at 6–7 weeks postpartum was 11.10±1.12 g/dL. Anemia at last antenatal visit, history of blood transfusion during pregnancy, younger maternal age (< 21 years), consuming < 50 tablets during pregnancy, and not receiving iron supplementation during the postpartum period were identified as significant predictors of anaemia at 6 weeks postpartum.
Government needs to strengthen the post-partum iron supplementation program as only a fraction of women received iron supplementation at the time of discharge from the hospital.
postpartum, anaemia, women, India
