Anemia Prevalence and Iron Supplementation Practices Among Pregnant Women in Vancouver, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Health Canada recommends supplementation with 16–20 mg iron during pregnancy to maintain adequate iron stores and reduce the prevalence of iron deficiency. Most prenatal vitamins contain 27 mg iron (the recommended dietary allowance). In the case of diagnosed iron deficiency (typically defined as a ferritin concentration < 15–50 µg/L), some pregnant women may be recommended to take additional iron. Iron is an essential nutrient and adequate intake is needed for a healthy pregnancy; however, excess iron can also be harmful. We aimed to evaluate the hematological profile, prevalence of anemia, and iron supplementation practices of healthy pregnant women in Vancouver, Canada. As part of an ongoing clinical trial, 40 healthy pregnant women (aged 19–42 years) received prenatal vitamins containing 27 mg iron over 16 weeks of pregnancy, starting at 9–21 weeks gestation. A complete blood count was measured at baseline and endline. Anemia was defined as hemoglobin < 110 g/L in the first/third trimesters and < 105 g/L in the second trimester. Microcytic anemia (most commonly caused by iron deficiency) was defined as having both anemia and a MCV concentration < 80 fL. Participants reported other supplement use throughout the study, including additional iron prescribed for treatment of iron deficiency and/or anemia. At baseline and endline, the mean ± SD of hemoglobin was 124 ± 9 g/L and 127 ± 11 g/L; and for MCV was 89 ± 3 fL and 91 ± 3 fL, respectively. Based on hemoglobin (trimester-specific) and MCV thresholds, no participants were classified as having anemia or microcytic anemia at either timepoint, respectively. At endline, a total of n = 8 women (20%) reported that following their baseline visit (during the intervention period) they were informed by their health care provider to increase their supplemental dose of iron up to 300 mg, in addition to the 27 mg in the study prenatal vitamin. Whether recommendation for additional iron was warranted in 20% of women is unclear, as none had microcytic anemia based on hemoglobin and MCV values. Measurement of ferritin is warranted for the definitive diagnosis of iron deficiency, and to elucidate if there is a need for improved clinical practices for recommending additional iron supplementation. Healthy Starts Catalyst Grant (BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, Vancouver, Canada).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".