BACKGROUND
Anemia is a major public health problem in developing countries. It is
the most common nutritional disease in pregnancy with significant
adverse impact on maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. In
2019, the global prevalence of anemia in pregnant woman was estimated to
be 36.5% (1). As per recent NFHS 5 report the prevalence of anaemia in
pregnant women in India is 45.7% and 54.3% in urban and rural areas
respectively(2) The important causes of anemia in developing countries
include poor nutrition, inadequate iron in diet, poor absorption of iron
due to hookworm infestation, diarrhea,, suboptimal screening and
treatment and too early, too soon and too many child births. Routine
antenatal and postnatal iron supplementation free of cost is an
important Government initiative to reduce anemia in pregnancy. Despite
this, anemia remains unabated due to poor compliance to iron
supplementation by beneficiaries and lack of commitment among the health
care providers to screen and treat pregnant women for anemia. Covid 19
pandemic further disrupted the antenatal care services due to lockdowns
and related travel restrictions, loss of jobs and related financial
constraints and reluctance of pregnant women to visit health facilities
for the fear of contracting infection (3). The lower socioeconomic
strata were the worst affected. As with previous epidemics there was a
sudden increase in demand and redirection of the workforce towards the
management of COVID pandemic and resultant reduction in provision of
routine health services.(4) Although COVID-19 disease itself did not
directly increase the maternal mortality but resulted in unsupervised
pregnancies adversely affecting maternal health. (5, 6)
This study was initiated to study the impact of COVID 19 pandemic on the
prevalence, clinical profile and pregnancy outcomes of women with severe
anaemia