Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Research Article

Major Risk Factors Predicting Anemia Development during Pregnancy: Unmatched-Case Control Study

¹Partnership for Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Management System, Health System Strengthen Coordinator Hawassa, Ethiopia

²Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’, Via Montpellier n. 1, 00133 Rome, Italy

³Aklilu Lemma Institute of Pathobiology, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

⁴Bioinformatics Institute, A*STAR 30 Biopolis Street, #07-01 Matrix, Singapore

⁵Division of Molecular genetics and cell biology, School of Biological Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

⁶Addis Continental Institute of Public Health, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

*Corresponding Author:

Ayele Argaw-Denboba
Department of Experimental Medicine and Surgery
Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’
Via Montpellier n. 1, 00133 Rome, Italy
Tel: +91 9986232971
E-mail: aye7898@yahoo.com

Received date: May 21, 2015; Accepted date: Jun 23, 2015; Published date: Jun 30, 2015

Citation: Argaw B, Argaw-Denboba A, Taye B, Worku A, Worku A (2015) Major Risk Factors Predicting Anemia Development during Pregnancy: Unmatched-Case Control Study. J Community Med Health Educ 5: 353. doi: 10.4172/2161-0711.1000353

Copyright: © 2015 Argaw B, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Anemia in pregnancy is associated with increased rates of maternal and perinatal mortality, premature delivery and other adverse outcomes. Hence, identifying anemia predicting risk factors in high-risk groups such as pregnant women is essential for problem based intervention modalities, particularly for developing countries. The aim of this study was to identify the major risk factors predictive of anemia development during pregnancy in Hawassa and Yirgalem cities located in Sidama Zone, Ethiopia.

Methods: Unmatched case-control study, involving 561 pregnant women who initiated antenatal care follow up during their first trimester, was conducted from February to March 2011. Socio-demographic, hemoglobin level, obstetric and medical data of the study participants were collected using pre-tested well-structured questionnaire and reviewing antenatal care follow up record cards of each pregnant woman. Hemoglobin level <11 g/dl was used to define anemia during pregnancy. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to find predictors of anemia, P-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

Results: The major predicting risk factors for occurrence of anemia among pregnant women were, lower educational level (AOR=3.3, 95% CI: 1.3-8.0, P=0.007), prolonged menstruation period 6-8 days before the index pregnancy (AOR=3.1, 95% CI: 1.6-5.9., P=0.001), intestinal parasitic infection (AOR=2.9, 95% CI: 1.4-8.1, P=0.000), gastritis with duodenal ulcer bleeding (AOR=3.87, 95% CI: 1.8-8.0, P=0.000) and not taking meat/organ meats (AOR=2.8, 95% CI: 1.3-6.1, P=0.008).

Conclusions: Family illiteracy, intestinal parasitic infection, duration of menstrual bleeding, gastritis with duodenal ulcer bleeding, and inadequate intake of organ meats were identified as strong predicting risk factors of anemia among pregnant women. Therefore, to reduce maternal mortality, the overall anemia prevention strategy in pregnant women should promote community-based health education to low educated families, mass de-worming of intestinal parasites and focused counseling for those women who have prolonged menstruation and peptic ulcer diseases.

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