Weekly supplementation with iron and vitamin A during pregnancy increases hemoglobin concentration but decreases serum ferritin concentration in Indonesian pregnant women.

What this study found

Weekly iron supplementation was as effective as the national daily program for improving hemoglobin near term when adherence was adequate, and adding vitamin A further improved hemoglobin response while maintaining vitamin A status. In the weekly vitamin A plus iron group, hemoglobin increased from 110.1 Ϯ 1.4 to 114.0 Ϯ 1.4 g/L, serum ferritin fell from 14.7 (12.3-19.1) to 10.7 (9.1-13.0), and serum retinol was essentially unchanged at 0.96 Ϯ 0.03 to 0.97 Ϯ 0.03. Among anemic women, hemoglobin rose by 10.7 Ϯ 2.3 g/L with weekly vitamin A plus iron, 6.6 Ϯ 2.3 g/L with weekly iron, and 3.4 Ϯ…

Study & population

Randomized intervention study in pregnant women from nine rural villages in Leuwiliang subdistrict, Bogor district, West Java, Indonesia.

Intervention

Pregnant women received oral weekly tablets from enrollment at 16-20 weeks’ gestation until delivery, for an average of 20 weeks.

Key limitation

Only 190 participants had complete baseline and near-term biochemical data, which limits precision and generalizability.

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