Title: Iron deficiency anemia in children

Abstract:

Iron deficiency anemia in children

Introduction: The deficit of iron and anemia iron are considered as major problems of public health and lack of the most common nutritional worldwide due to their high prevalence, effective on growth and development, resistance to infections and linkage to mortality of less than two year babies. In Kosovo, we have no correct statistics on national level for the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia.

The purpose of the study: Was children with iron deficiency anemia and risk factors that may have affected children compared to non-anemic.

The Material & Methods: In this study are included 343 children; 244 children in the anemic study group and 99 children non-anemic in the control group.

Results: The result indicated that the children diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia consist more of male 57.4% compared to female 42.6% but they have no difference in the statistical significance. The age of these children consisted of approximately 19.2 months old (DS±13.7 months). Anemic children consisting of 62.2% were more often living in the city compared to those of controlling group by 52.5%; this difference had important statistical significance. The average mass of the child of birth body of the study group was 2973.5 gr while those of control group were 3405.7 gr. So, the average mass of the child of birth body of the study group (anemic) was significantly lower compared to children of the control group, which difference was statistically significant. Also, when involved in the study the average mass of the child of birth body of anemic children was much lower compared to the children of control group (difference was statistically significant.) Malnutrition was common in anemic children. Hypotrophy of the first instance was 36.5% and the second degree of hypotrophy was 6.6% of children of the study group. More than half (57.8%) of anemic children are fed with formula milk; 10.7% with commercial milk and 15.6% with natural milk or (cow milk). In 7.8% of cases they have mixed commercial with the formula milk or cow's milk and only one case was of commercial milk with cow's milk. Children of anemic group were less fed with meat, spinach, eggs; they were more fed with cereals compared with the children of control group; the difference consisted statistically significant. The average age of onset of artificial nutrition of children in the study group was 5.0 months; to children in the control group was 4.0 months without any statistically significance difference. Anemic children have started complementary food earlier than control group children with significant difference, which means that they are fed less exclusively breastfeeding and complementary feeding has started if not fed properly. Anemic children in the highest structure of anemic had their mothers anemic as well consisted of 47.1% compared with non-anemic children (27.3%) which difference was statistically significant. Bleeding during childbirth in similar structure of anemic children had mothers from (17.6%) and non-anemic from (18.2%) regardless statistically significant. Children of the study group were more often premature (14.3%) compared to those of control group (5.1%). They often resulted with lower body mass when in birth 29.1% versus 7.1%. More often twins 5.7% compared to those of control group 2.0%. To the anemic children we experienced a decrease in the number of erythrocytes, hemoglobin, MCV, hematocrit, and iron which was approximately 6.2 15.8 compared to the control group.

Conclusion: : From our data it is obvious that iron deficiency anemia is very often disease with many risk factors that can cause disease, as are the nutritional status and other diseases.