[Anemia in the premature newborn]

Anemia is a common and life threatening pathology among new born babies from premature. It has the potential to delay the child's growth if appropriate care if not taken. In order to improve care to new born babies with anemia, we carried out a retrospective study on a group of 195 records obtained from the neonatology ward and from 46 outpatients in the CHU of Cocody between January 2001 and December 2003. At the end of the study, we made the following reports: Incidence of early anemia is 17.5% and several risk factors are involved such as absence of anemia and malaria prophylaxis during pregnancy. Anemia whether it is secondary or early is often masked. Palor is observed in small proportions among anemic prematures at birth. Thus, cell blood chemistry is important to confirm the diagnosis. Early anemia is generally normochrome normocytaire and secondary one is hypochronic. Care about anemia cases must rely on clinical data as well as bioiogical and epidemiological data. Early iron supplementation (2 to 3 iron element mg/kg/day) could prevent late and secondary anemia in non-anemic prematures at birth.