A study conducted on women in the UK suggests that anemia during pregnancy may increase the likelihood of the child being born with a heart condition by 47 per cent.
Anaemia, or iron deficiency, has been studied to be common among people with congenital heart disease — in which one has heart defects at birth affecting the organ’s function.
The study analysed health records of 2,776 women whose children were diagnosed with congenital heart disease, comparing them to 13,880 women whose children did not have the condition.
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It found that 4.4% of children with congenital heart disease and 2.8% of children with normal heart function had anemia. After accounting for potential factors, the odds of giving birth to a child with congenital heart disease were 47% higher in anemic mothers.
“We already know that the risk of congenital heart disease can be raised by a variety of factors, but these results develop our understanding of anemia specifically and take it from lab studies to the clinic. Knowing that early maternal anemia is so damaging could be a gamechanger worldwide,” said corresponding author Duncan B. Sparrow, Ph.D., of the University of Oxford.
“Because iron deficiency is the root cause of many cases of anemia, widespread iron supplementation for women — both when trying for a baby and when pregnant — could help prevent congenital heart disease in many newborns before it has developed,” Sparrow added.
Researchers recommended that a clinical trial be done to see if iron supplementation during pregnancy could prevent anemia and, as a result, heart defects in newborns.
The study was published in International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.