No extra iron helps many pregnant women

Although we recommend universal antenatal supplementation with iron, an additional intake of iron is not greatly benefit pregnant women, except when they are anemic. This was observed by researchers of the Institute of tropical medicine Antwerp and colleagues who have followed more than a thousand pregnant women in Burkina Faso.

Our body needs iron for the production of hemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells responsible for the transport of oxygen through the body. In Western countries a shortage of oxygen transporters anemia is rare, but in Africa up to half of all women are anemic. Pregnant women 1268 in this study, 43% has been anemic.

Half of those women received daily pills with 60 mg of iron (folic acid); the other half received 30 mg of iron (plus folic acid, zinc, vitamins a and c and other nutrients). Chance decided what he got. Women have taken the pills up to 3 months after childbirth. At the end of the study, all women with approximately the same levels of iron in their blood, no matter how iron they had taken. They had about 11 grams of hemoglobin per deciliter of blood, say slightly less than the norm.

During pregnancy, when the growth of the baby needs oxygen, women need more iron than normal, probably towards the end of their pregnancy. But the administration of supplemental iron women ' normal ' could not prevent their hemoglobin levels (slightly) dropping. "The benefit of iron supplements for women nonanemic is clear," the authors conclude in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In Africa, where many people are malnourished, and where parasites are also on their part, many women suffer from iron-poor blood. Which of course must be completed. In women anemic pills made iron levels rise, at the same level as other women in pregnancy: slightly below normal.

Sources: Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, AlphaGalileo Internet Press Foundation.

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