Clinical Investigation

A reference range for pregnant women living at high altitude

  • Ragıp Atakan Al
  • İlhan Bahri Delibaş
  • Necla Konar
  • İbrahim Karaca
  • Elif Göl
  • Ömer Erkan Yapça

Turk J Obstet Gynecol 2009;6(4):262-265

Objective:

To estimate reference values of hemoglobin for pregnant women living high altitude (1850 m)

Methods:

A prospective cross-sectional study were proceeded on the pregnant women living in the center of Erzurum. The pregnant women living for at least one year in the city center, who has a gestational week between 5 and 41 and who take 60 mg/day elementary Fe+2 were included consecutively into the study. Those who have chronic medical illness or have a recent infectious disease or within a month or have hematologic disease or who have diagnosed as anemia were excluded from study. A complete blood count was obtained from all pregnant women and plasma ferritin those have a hemoglobin >11 g/dL. The pregnant women who had a ferritin <10 µg/dL were excluded from final analysis. Reference range with %95 prediction interval for hemoglobin was calculated.

Results:

The lowest hemoglobin value was determined at 28th gestational week. Mean hemoglobin (2.5th, 97.5th percentiles) was 13,1 g/dL (11,6-14,9) at 5-21 gestational weeks, 12,4 g/dL (11,2-13,9), at 22-33 weeks, 13 g/dL (11,4-15,2) at 34-41 weeks.

Conclusion:

The cutoffs were different from those of CDC estimated for sea level. Corrected hemoglobin values must be used for pregnant women living high altitude

Keywords: High altitude, anemia, pregnancy, hemoglobin