Periconceptional Iron Supplementation in Rural Bangladesh

The Hospital for Sick Children

Status and phase

Completed

Early Phase 1

Conditions

Anemia

Treatments

Dietary Supplement: folic acid

Dietary Supplement: Ferrous fumarate (iron)

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT00953134

Periconceptional_Fe

Details and patient eligibility

About

The investigators hypothesize that periconceptional iron supplementation to married, nulliparous women in rural Bangladesh will significantly reduce anemia and improve hemoglobin concentrations before and during pregnancy.

Full description

In 2007, the National Strategy for Anemia Prevention and Control in Bangladesh included adolescents and newly married women as target groups for future iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation programs. This double-blinded RCT examined the effect of daily periconceptional IFA vs. folic acid (FA) on anemia and iron indictors before and during pregnancy among married, nulliparous women in rural Bangladesh. Biochemical indices were collected at baseline and either at 15 weeks gestation or after 9 months among non-pregnant women (NPW).

Enrollment

273 patients

Sex

Female

Ages

Under 40 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Women were eligible if they were:

Married
Nulliparous
< 40 years old
Living in the same household as their husband

Exclusion criteria

Women were excluded if they were:

Pregnant at enrollment
Planning to move out of the region
Using iron supplements within the previous 3 months
Using an implant form of birth control, or had surgery to prevent pregnancy
Women with a Hb concentration of < 70 g/L, defined as severely anemic according to WHO definition (5), were excluded from the study and appropriately treated