reduce chances of developing pregnancy related anaemia.
During the gestation period, majority of pregnancy
related anaemia cases were recorded in second (60%) and
third (33.3%) trimesters of pregnancy. It is suggested that it
could be attributed partly to un-planned pregnancies. In
many developing countries family planning is rarely
practised and many un-planned pregnancies take place
while mothers are still breast feeding. This exposes the
pregnant mother to extraordinary stress that affects her
nutritional status and result in depletion of the
micronutrient stores of the mother, to the extent that she
becomes anaemic from first trimester in the next pregnancy.
The daily requirements for iron as well as folate are greater
for a woman in the last two trimesters of pregnancy. This
need cannot be met by diet alone, but is derived from at
least partly from maternal reserves. When iron reserves are
already low, due to malnutrition and or frequent
pregnancies, anaemia results and progresses to become
severe in the second and third trimesters. A pregnant
woman with previous history of anaemia is twice more
likely to become anaemic as compared to one without
history of anaemia and this has a more severe outcome for
both the mother and the child. Declining levels of Hb
concentrations accompanied by the decreasing of serum
levels of vitamin A, ascorbic acid, folate and B12 and
multiple vitamin deficiencies have been associated with
anaemia in pregnant mothers in the last trimester.