Introduction: Women are considered to be vulnerable with regards to immunothrombotic conditions. Exploring this bidirectional susceptibility across the different female reproductive phases is important for effective maternal healthcare delivery. This study assessed selected indicators of immunothrombosis between premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Methods: Equal numbers of premenopausal and postmenopausal women totaling one hundred were recruited for this comparative study. Blood sample

Abstract

Introduction: Maternal healthcare takes into consideration the immediate state of an individual woman with regards to health status and subsequent management. Anaemia is a common maternal health challenge that is affected by hormonal shifts in women. Thus, this study focused on prevalence of anaemia and iron requirement across women of premenopausal and postmenopausal phases. Methods: This study enrolled apparently healthy 100 females with equal numbers of premenopausal and postmenopausal subjects. Blood sample was appropriately obtained from each subject for assessment of red cell and iron parameters. Microhaematocrit and cyanmethaemoglobin methods were employed for the measurement of packed cell volume and haemoglobin concentration respectively, while the iron parameters were assayed by colorimetric methods. Transferrin saturation was mathematically derived. Results are expressed as Frequencies and Mean ±SD, while student t-test was used for analysis of data on SPSS version 22.0. Statistical significance was drawn at a p≤ 0.05. Results: Postmenopausal women had significantly higher values of packed cell volume (0.38 ± 0.03 l/l), haemoglobin concentration (125.50 ± 9.30 g/l), serum iron (23.17 ± 0.93 µmol/l) and transferrin saturation (36.88 ± 2.00 %) than the premenopausal women (0.37 ± 0.02 l/l, 121.44 ± 7.83 g/l, 15.53 ± 2.60 µmol/l and 20.70 ± 3.60 % respectively) while the premenopausal women had significantly higher values in total iron binding capacity (75.24 ± 3.32 µmol/l) than the postmenopausal women (62.97 ± 1.88 µmol/l. Whereas 30% of the premenopausal women were anaemic and 10% had low transferrin saturation, anaemia in postmenopausal women occurred at a prevalence of 18% and the indicators of iron need were adequate. Conclusion: This study has shown that among apparently healthy individuals, prevalence of anaemia and iron requirement are lower in postmenopausal women than premenopausal women.