The Influence of Maternal Iron Deficiency on the Newborn

Abstract

Sixty-six pregnant women (25 of them severly anemic, 21 moderately or mildly anemic, and 20 not anemic), and later their newborn infants, were studied by standard hematologic methods and by volumetric technics. The diagnosis of maternal iron deficiency anemia was made from values established in the last half of the third trimester of pregnancy. The mean red cell volume of infants of non-anemic mothers was 46.2 ml/kg; that of the infants of severely anemic mothers was 37.3 ml/kg, a value 19 per cent below that of the normal group. The mean circulating hemoglobin mass of the non-anemic group was 18.9 g/kg; that of the anemic group 15.1 g/kg. The difference of 3.8 g/kg represents a deficiency of about 20 per cent of the iron otherwise available to the anemic infants compared with the normal newborns. Infants of mothers treated with oral iron during pregnancy had, in general, higher total circulating serum iron levels than infants of untreated mothers. It is concluded that infants of anemic mothers will frequently share the iron deficiency, and that treatment of the mother with iron during her pregnancy tends to relieve her infant of this common deficiency. The more severe the anemia in the mother the more this will be reflected in the infant at birth. Such a profound effect on the newborn may be expected to influence the production of iron deficiency anemia in later infancy.