EFFICACY ASSESSMENT OF FOOD BASED IRON INTERVENTION ON HEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF PREGNANT WOMEN.

The present study was conducted on 500 pregnant women residing in four districts Udaipur, Alwar, Sriganganagar and Bikaner to assess their nutritional profile. An interview schedule was developed and pre tested before collection of data. The nutritional status of the pregnant women was assessed using dietary adequacy and anthropometric measurement. Bikaner district was selected for, two approaches of iron intervention. For this 80 selected anaemic women were divided into two groups i.e. FBIG (food based iron group) who was given tablets prepared by mixing iron rich powder of lotus stem, rice bran and lemon juice, and synthetic iron group SIG given commercial iron tablets. In addition both the groups were given equal amount of folic acid tablets for 30 days..Nutritional status was assessed by weight, height and dietary intake which did not change significantly by intervention. Hematological status of pregnant women revealed a significant increment in hemoglobin level i.e. 9.48 and 9.35 g/dl prior to intervention to 9.67 g/dl and 9.91 g/dl in FBIG and SIG respectively. Iron intervention also had positive effect on hematological status i.e. R.B.C, count, heamotocrit, MCV and MCH confirming the results as predicted by heamoglobin levels. These results clearly depict that iron intervention had positive impact on iron status of pregnant women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]