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Re: Women's anemia status [message #586 is a reply to message #516] Wed, 26 June 2013 10:25 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
estammer is currently offline  estammer
Messages: 9
Registered: March 2013
Member

Hi, thanks for your reply. I have checked out the Guide to DHS Statistics and unfortunately, I still have questions.

the Guide says this: "Pregnancy causes an increase in blood fluid diluting somewhat the concentration of hemoglobin. Therefore the cutoff for mild anemia is lowered for pregnant women. No adjustment is made for the cutoff values for either moderate or severe anemia. Because the availability of oxygen is less at higher altitudes (lower partial pressures) and because smoking interferes with the blood's capacity to transfer oxygen, adjustments need to be made for both altitude and smoking."

From this, I understand that there is an adjustment for mild anemia in pregnant women, but I am not sure if this adjustment is made by gestational age, trimester or if there is one adjustment made for pregnant women as a whole.

For example, if a woman was 20 weeks pregnant, according to the CDC criteria, she would NOT be considered mildly anemic because the threshold is 10.5. However, when looking at the thresholds used in DHS report tables (<11.0 for pregnant women), it appears as though she WOULD be considered mildly anemic.

I have attached the CDC table I am referring to that is quoted in the "DHS guide to statistics". The DHS report I am referring to is Bangladesh 2011.


Thanks again for your help with this!

Emily
 
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