Abstract:
The regimen of antenatal iron supplementation
as practised today needs review. Daily ciral iron
supplements not only cause distressing side
effects which result in*poor compliance but also
a substantial proportion of the supplement
remains unabsorbed (1.,2,3,4,5). Less frequent
oral iron supplementation may be equally
beneficial to a subject as daily suppiements (6).
A study on non pregnant females has suggested
that an iron supplement given once a week is
equally effective in improving haemoglobin(Flb)
levels as a daily iron supplement (7). However a
study carried out by us suggested that weekly
iron supplements were inadequate to meet the
additional requirements of iron during
pregnancy/ especially in women with borderline
or latent iron deficiency (8).
Studies on rats have shown that iron absorption
is suppressed after an oral iron supplement. This
suppression apparently lasts throughout their
mucosal cell turnover time (9,10). It has also
been shown that an oral iron supplement given
every 2nd or 3rd day was equally effective as
daily iron supplements in improving the iron
status of anaemic rats (11).
Hence this study was designed to assess the
effectiveness of an antenatal oral iron
supplement given three times a week in
improving the iron status of pregnant women.
