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Abstract
• Preterm birth remains a major cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality, and probably the most challenging problem in modern obstetrics.
• Accurate prediction of preterm labor reduce hospitalization and unnecessary medications that drain the resources, and allow choosing the proper time for the selected intervention.
• Recently the question has been raised of whether a high serum ferritin concentration is of value as a marker of impending preterm delivery. It has been hypothesized that high third trimester concentration correlates with very preterm delivery caused by subclinical maternal infection (Tamura et al, 1996)
• Normally serum level lies within the range between 15-300 ng/ml but these concentrations are dependant on both age and sex, the level drops markedly in pregnancy because of feto-placental demand and the required expansion of the red cell mass.
• To determine the role of maternal serum ferritin concentration in cases of spontaneous preterm delivery (as a predictive marker of preterm labor) and to compare its concentration at deferent grades of preterm labor, this study was performed.