Anaemia in pregnancy--is the current definition meaningful?

To determine if the current definition of antenatal anaemia (haemoglobin < 10 g/dl) has any clinical significance.

A retrospective study on all singleton deliveries over a 3-year period in two teaching hospitals under one university department was conducted by the extraction of data from a computer database. The major pregnancy complications and perinatal outcome were compared between mothers with and without anaemia and adjusted for parity.

The incidence of multiparity was significantly higher in the 817 anaemia patients compared to the 10125 non-anaemia patients, but there was no difference in the incidence of other major antenatal complications, type of labour or mode of delivery, incidence of preterm delivery, or perinatal mortality or morbidity, after adjusting for parity. Among the anaemia patients, those with thalassaemia trait (54.8%) had a significantly higher incidence of gestational glucose intolerance but the incidences of other complications and the perinatal outcome were similar to the iron deficiency patients.

Antenatal anaemia, defined as a maternal haemoglobin of < 10 g/dl, does not adversely affect pregnancy outcome. This raises the question of whether the diagnosis of anaemia should be redefined.