الفهرس 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHANGES IN H EMATOLOGICALOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Background: Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) is the condition in which there is decrease in the number of red blood cells or the amount of hemoglobin in the blood. It is caused by insufficient dietary intake and absorption of iron, or iron loss from bleeding. Bleeding can be from a range of sources such as the intestinal, uterine or urinary tract. Anemia has a significant impact on the health of the fetus as well as that of the mother. It impairs the oxygen delivery through the placenta to the fetus and interferes with the normal intrauterine growth, leading to fetal loss and perinatal deaths. Anemia is associated with increased preterm labor (28.2%), preeclampsia (31.2%), and maternal sepsis. The oral route is the first choice to replace iron stores as this allows the normal mechanism of absorption to be used, in addition to being an inexpensive and effective treatment.
Objective: We aimed in this study to compare the efficacy and the safety of Lactoferrin versus ferrous sulphate for the treatment of iron deficiency anemia during pregnancy.
Patients and Methods: This study was done in outpatient clinic of Ain Shams University Maternity hospital between two groups of pregnant women ranging from 20-40 years and gestational age 13-26 weeks with microcytic hypochromic anemia, mild anemia and moderate anemia for 2 months that who selected in a randomized method by the computer. All patients were subjected to full history taking, full clinical examination, obstetric history, symptoms of anemia, past history, doing CBC and serum ferritin.
Results: Our study show that no significant difference between ferrous sulphate and lactoferrin groups regarding demographic characteristics. In our study, the results show that total increase in hemoglobin after 2 months with lactoferrin was higher compared to ferrous sulfate. According to the results obtained in this clinical trial, oral lactoferrin was better tolerated and more acceptable with higher increase in mean hemoglobin when compared to oral iron therapy over two month treatment. Oral lactoferrin could be used as a good substitute to oral iron therapy in mild to moderate IDA during pregnancy.
Conclusion: Inabilities to design a double blind clinical trial and to record the obstetric outcome of women with IDA were a major limitation of our study. Future research should address obstetric outcome in terms of gestational age at delivery, mode of delivery, maternal complications (postpartum hemorrhage and defective lactation) and neonatal outcome (neonatal weight, admission to neonatal intensive care unit and neonatal death.