Impact of Twice Weekly Hematinics on Hematological Parameters in Pregnancy

Background: Anemia is prevalent in our setting for myriads of reasons hence iron supplementation has become a routine in the antenatal clinics; other regimens are practiced in other climes. Aims: This study aimed at comparing the efficiency of the twice-weekly as against the daily iron supplementation on hematologic indices in healthy pregnant women. Study design: This was a longitudinal prospective study Place and duration of study: this study was carried out at antenatal clinic at the Jos university teaching hospital Jos plateau state of Nigeria over a period of 14 weeks. Methodology: A total of 120 pregnant women were assigned by simple random sampling to receive either daily or twice weekly iron supplementation. Their blood samples were assessed by determining hemoglobin concentration, mean corpuscular volume and serum ferritin as baseline at booking visit from 16-24 weeks of gestation and follow up at 4, 8 and 14 weeks. All data generated was analyzed using EPI info computer software version 3.5.2. The level of statistical significance was set at P<0.05. Results: The twice weekly supplementation showed similar effects with the daily regimen with regards to the trends in Hb and serum ferritin. More women (77.1%) on twice weekly regimen had Hb>10g/dl at the 14 week visit compared with daily regime and this was statistically significant P=0.031. Conclusion: These findings suggest that both regimens have about the same effect on hematological parameters during pregnancy. Therefore, in non-anemic pregnant women twice weekly iron supplementation may be used.