Abstract
Distinguishing iron deficiency anaemia from thalassemia trait in clinical obstetric practice
Highlights
Mild anaemia, with a hemoglobin as low as 10 mg/dl is expected in normal pregnancy due to hemodilution
Depending on the number of genes affected and the type of mutation, there is a spectrum of clinical phenotypes in both alpha and beta thalassemia from asymptomatic to various degrees of chronic hemolytic anaemia, splenomegaly, ineffective hematopoiesis, bone marrow expansion, skeletal deformities, and in the worst cases hydrops fetalis leading to intrauterine death [18]
Beta thalassemia trait results when a β+ or β0 mutation is paired with a normal beta globin gene: this is generally asymptomatic and shows a mild microcytic hypochromic anaemia on the complete blood count (CBC), similar to alpha thalassemia trait
Summary
With a hemoglobin as low as 10 mg/dl is expected in normal pregnancy due to hemodilution. Akers AS (2017) Distinguishing iron deficiency anaemia from thalassemia trait in clinical obstetric practice ng/dl there are adequate iron stores for pregnancy and no iron supplementation needs to be given [14].
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