\”For the sake of my baby, I deliberately eat a balanced diet. I even endured eating pork liver that I didn\’t eat before. How could I be anemic?\” Obstetrics clinics often encounter mothers who are confused like this. They believe that anemia should not occur due to a balanced daily diet, and some even suspect that a misdiagnosis has occurred. Anemia during pregnancy also makes many pregnant mothers very worried about whether it will affect the growth and development of their babies. So what causes anemia during pregnancy, and how to replenish blood scientifically?
1. What is anemia during pregnancy?
Iron is one of the important components of hemoglobin synthesis. Pregnant women’s physiological demand for iron is three times higher than during menstrual period, and increases with the progress of pregnancy. In the middle and late stages of pregnancy, 30 mg/d of elemental iron is required. Therefore, anemia during pregnancy is very common. The World Health Organization recommends hemoglobin (Hb) concentration during pregnancy
2. What are the three major causes of anemia during pregnancy?
Reason 1: Physiological anemia. During pregnancy, due to physiological changes in pregnant women and the needs of the growing fetus, anemia is more common than in non-pregnant women. During pregnancy, the total amount of blood and the production of red blood cells will increase, and the blood volume will increase. Therefore, the blood will be diluted. The hemoglobin after pregnancy will be lower than before pregnancy. This is the so-called physiological anemia, which is a normal phenomenon.
Reason 2: Iron deficiency anemia. After pregnancy, with the growth and development of the fetus, the growth of the placenta and the umbilical cord, the amount of iron required also increases significantly, and the absorption rate of iron from the daily diet is only 10-20%. If the supply of iron in the diet is small, pregnant women will not Taking additional iron supplements can easily lead to iron deficiency anemia.
Reason three: partial eclipse or anemia due to disease. The body is deficient in iron before pregnancy, and iron is the main raw material for hemoglobin. For example, pregnant women have a partial eclipse or have chronic diseases such as intestinal parasitic diseases, stomach problems, hemorrhoids, etc., resulting in insufficient iron intake or excessive loss, leading to anemia.
Another common cause of anemia is thalassemia. For areas with a high incidence of thalassemia such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Chongqing, pregnant mothers should be routinely screened during their first prenatal check-up. Thalassemia.
3. How to replenish blood scientifically? Diet + Drugs Improve Anemia
If anemia is discovered during a prenatal check-up of a pregnant mother, the doctor will look for the cause of the anemia to distinguish whether it is iron deficiency anemia or thalassemia. If you have iron deficiency anemia, you can improve the anemia through diet and taking iron supplements.
When improving anemia through diet, it should be noted that the dietary iron absorption rate of pregnant women is about 15% (1%~40%), among which heme iron is easier to absorb than non-heme iron, and 95% of dietary iron % is non-heme iron. Foods containing heme iron include red meat, fish and poultry, which are high-iron foods.
The nutrients contained in fruits and vegetables have long been obvious to all, and the vitamin C they contain is the best assistant for the body\’s absorption of iron. Among them, grapes, apples, cherries, strawberries, watermelons, citrus and other purple and red fruits have the effect ofwould be better. But you need to give some thought to the choice of vegetables. In addition to dark-colored vegetables, vegetables rich in iron such as spinach and rapeseed also have relatively high contents of various acids such as oxalic acid, so they are not suitable for cooking. , be sure to cook them thoroughly to ensure that the structure of the oxalic acid is completely destroyed. During the cooking process, it is recommended to use an iron pot and shovel, and use some soy sauce and oil with high iron content, which can get twice the result with half the effort.
Of course, some foods can inhibit iron absorption, such as milk and dairy products. Other foods that inhibit iron absorption include cereal bran, cereals, refined flour, beans, nuts, tea, coffee, cocoa, etc.
4. Take iron supplements
For expectant mothers who do not find anemia in the blood routine during prenatal check-ups, they can simply adjust their diet without supplementing iron. However, for people with iron deficiency and mild or moderate anemia, doctors recommend oral iron treatment as the main treatment, supplemented by improved diet. Common nutritional supplements are folic acid and oral iron.
People with severe anemia need to be treated with oral iron or iron injection, and can also receive small and multiple infusions of concentrated red blood cells. For patients with extremely severe anemia, the first choice is to transfuse concentrated red blood cells. After the Hb reaches 70 g/L and the symptoms improve, oral iron treatment or iron injection treatment can be changed. After treatment until Hb returns to normal, oral iron supplements should be continued for 3 to 6 months or until 3 months postpartum.
5. Iron supplementation for thalassemia is ineffective
However, for pregnant mothers whose anemia is found to be the cause of thalassemia through examination, iron supplementation is ineffective. , even harmful. Therefore, experts suggest that pregnant women should find out the exact cause of anemia and prescribe appropriate medicines, and should not blindly replenish blood on their own.