Abstract
Objective: To Study the Relationship between Maternal Hemoglobin and Perinatal
outcome in a cohort of 860 pregnant women and to highlight the importance of
antenatal care regarding maternal health and fetal outcome.
Methods: All Singleton pregnancies delivering at Pakistan Railway Hospital
Rawalpindi from January 2004 to December 2005 that fulfilled the required criteria
were included.
Results: Out of the 860 patients, 402 were anemic (<11gm/dl) and 458 were non
anemic. Perinatal outcome included preterm delivery, low birth weight, intrauterine
growth retardation, perinatal death, low apgr scores and intrauterine fetal deaths. Risk
of preterm and Low birth weight among anemic women was 3.4 and 1.8 times more
than non anaemic women. The neonates of anemic woman also had 1.7 times
increased risk of having low Apgar scores at 1 min. Among anemic women there was
2.2 times greater risk of intrauterine fetal death than the non-anemic women.
Conclusion: Regular antenatal care from first trimester has a vital role in assessing
and managing maternal anemia timely and it directly affects the perinatal outcome.
The patients with anemia have also higher risk of having low birth weight, preterm
births and intra uterine fetal death. (Rawal Med J 2007;32:102-104).

Key words: Maternal hemoglobin, perinatal outcome, preterm birth