Subjects
BRAC (formerly known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), a large national private development organisation in Bangladesh, provides antenatal care services to rural pregnant women through communitybased antenatal care centres (ANCCs). Each ANCC covers a population of around 1000. This study used baseline information from an iron/folate supplementation trial where 50 out of 54 ANCCs in the area were selected. The selection of these ANCCs was done at random and therefore each of the 54 ANCCs had an equal chance to be included in this study. In the catchment area of the 50 ANCCs, all pregnant women with fundal height 22 cm (n 611) were identified through house-to-house visits
and invited to participate. At the next monthly ANCC meeting, the first four women enrolling in the maternity programme who were initially screened and fulfilling the inclusion criteria for the supplementation trial (i.e. fundal height between 14 and 22 cm, no previous iron supplementation during the current pregnancy and reportedly healthy) were included in this study. A few centres included up to six women. The final sample consisted of 214 pregnant women who consented to
participate. There was no missing information on Hb, serum ferritin (sFt) or serum transferrin receptor (sTfR).