Prevalence of Iron Deficiency Anemia among Moroccan Pregnant Women

Abstract

Background: Iron deficiency anemia in pregnant women is a serious public health problem, especially in developing countries. Aim: The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia and its associated factors during pregnancy in the south of Morocco. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried in the regional Hospital Center Hassan II (RHC) from April to august 2021 in all the pregnant women coming for consultation in the maternity service. 500 pregnant women were randomly recruited for the study. A complete blood count and serum ferritin was performed in every case. They have been the subjects of a questionnaire containing their background and health data. The analysis of our data was done by the IBM SPSS Statistics 25 software. Results: The prevalence of iron deficiency anemia was 20% with a CI of (44.7% - 53.5%). The most affected age group was 25 to 35 years with a rate of 42.86%. The majority of women had mild anemia (84.61%) followed by moderate anemia (11.54%) and severe anemia (3.85%). 57.14% of the anemic pregnant women were primigravida. The results of serum ferritin made it possible to identify 70% of women deficient, with a dominance of normocytic normochromic anemia. The influence of geographic origin and place of birth was not significant. Conclusion: The prevalence of iron deficiency anemia is more or less low in our study. However, there is a high prevalence of iron deficiency and anemia during pregnancy. Statistically, there was no significant association between iron deficiency anemia and the various parameters studied, such as age, parity, origin and place of birth.