The Practice of Iron Supplementation and Degree of Anemia for Pre-terms and Low Birth Weight Infants at High-risk Infant Clinic at TASH and GMH,Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from January 1,2019 to December 31, 2020

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Date

2021-08

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Addis Abeba University

Abstract

Background: Eternal Iron supplementation is providing of prophylaxis’s iron for pre-terms and low birth weight infants to supply sufficient iron for growth and development without increasing the risk of iron overload .Preterm infants are deprived of the significant iron accretion that occurs in the third trimester of pregnancy and have reduced iron stores at birth compared with term infants .Iron deficiency in infancy is associated with a range of clinical and developmentallyimportant issues including neurodevelopmental deficits, delayed maturation of the auditory brainstem response, risk for poor cognitive, motor, social–emotional and neurophysiological development. Objective:The primary objective of this study is to evaluate thecurrent iron supplementation practice and anemia for pre-terms and low birth weight infantsat Tikur Anbessa spatialized hospital and Gandhi memorial hospital fromJanuary 1,2019 to December 31, 2020 Method:A cross sectional study was done by using patient charts review that wereevaluated at newborn intensive care unit,wards and high-risk infant clinicof Tikur Anbessa spatialized hospitaland gandy memorial hospital.Datawas collected through retrospective chart review which meet the inclusion criteria by using structured check list which is prepared from previous literature with few amendments. The data was coded, cleaned and entered in to Epi data version 4.6 and then transferred to SPSS version 26 software program for further analysis. Descriptive summary measures were presented using Tables and Figures. The data was categorized and summarized with descriptive statistics Result:There were 245 pre-terms and low birth weight infants included in this study. Iron prophylaxis supplementation practice was 53.1%, where 54.6% of supplemented infant was females. Mean iron prophylaxis starting time was 7.4 weeks and average dose of supplementation was1.94mg/k/day.Mean duration of iron supplementation was 5.4 months. One hundred thirteen (86.9%) of supplemented infants were below 34 weeks GA. Ninety-four (72.3%) of iron supplemented infants birth weight were below 1500 grams. Around 65.4 % of infantes were started iron prophylaxes in the rage of (3 -8) weeks of post-natal age and 65.4 percent of infants supplemented 2 to 4mg/kg/day of elementary iron. According to this study prevalence of anemia was 39.6% and 4.1 % severe anemia,20.6% moderate and 75.3% had mild anemia where all of severe anemia was non-supplemented infants. Conclusion:Iron prophylaxis practice was low in TASH and GMH and a great variability in the timing of beginning, dose, and ending of iron prophylaxis which needs standardization. prophylaxis iron supplementation practice is imperative to protect anemia in preterm and low birth weight infants. Anemia was high for those non supplemented infants whereas preventive iron prophylaxis prevents severe anemia significant.

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Keywords

Anemia, Iron ,Infants weight

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