Abstract

Background: Anemia is the most common nutritional deficiency worldwide. Anaemia
increases the risk of maternal morbidity & mortality and adverse maternal outcome
such as ante partum hemorrhage, post-partum haemorrhage & puerperal sepsis.
Objective: To find out the prevalence of the Anaemia in antenatal women and to
determine the association with sociodemographic factors.
Materials and Methods: It was a community based, cross sectional study done over a
period of 1 year. The antenatal women with gestational period 12-20 weeks, visiting at
antenatal clinic were registered for the study. The antenatal women were interviewed
by using pre-structured, pre-tested questionnaire. Prior consent was obtained from the
participants. Detailed clinical examination was done at UHTC. Haemoglobin estimation
was done by Sahli’s method. Anaemia was classified as per WHO criteria. Data was
analyzed by using Chi-Square Test to check association. P-value < 0.05 was considered
significant.
Results: 500 pregnant women were included in the study. Majority (93.4%) were urban
dwellers, 227 (45.4%) had attended secondary level of education. Most of them were
Hindu by religion (75.2%), 84.2% had average monthly income <10,000, and 83.6%
were living in the family size >2. Association was found and was significant with age,
socioeconomic status, occupation, education level and family size.
Conclusion: Anemia remains to be a public health problem. Although iron-folic acid
supplementation is available under the national health program to address this issue, it
is important for primary care physicians to consider and address other risk factors
when designing and implementing target interventions for anemia control in selected
populations.