Abstract:
Introduction: Anemia is common medical problem in pregnancy in which the number of red
blood cells or their oxygen carrying capacity is insufficient to meet physiologic needs. Though
anemia in light of its magnitude and associated factors well studied, there is a paucity of research
regarding maternal anemia and its association with perinatal out come at study area. .Therefore,
this study aimed to investigate magnitude of the anemia, its associated factors and its relationship
with perinatal outcome.
Methods and Materials: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted among 405
pregnant mothers admitted to deliveries in four public hospitals of Harar town and Dire Dawa
administrative city. Systematic random sampling was used to select the study participants. The
data were entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 22 for analysis.
Bivariate and multivariate analysis was done by using binary logistic regression. All variables
with P<0.25 in bivariate analysis were included into final model and statistical significance was
declared at P<0.05.
Results: This study outlined that prevalence of anemia using the cut off level of
Hemoglobin<11mg/dl (<33%of hematocrit) was 33.1% 95%CI= 28.4%, 37.8%).Of these sever,
moderate and mild anemia accounts7.5%, 43.3% and 49.2% respectively. Being the rural
residence(AOR=3.8,95%CI:1.815,7.946)},ANC(AOR=3.4,95%CI:1.341,8.791),Blood lose in
pregnancy{(AOR=0.25,95%CI:0.066,0.964)},khatchewing{(AOR=3.0,95%CI:1.309,6.926).freq
uencyofmeals(AOR=3.9,95%CI:1.694,8.979),eatingleafyvegetable(AOR=0.12,95%CI:0.064,0.2
46),and taking milk with tea {AOR=2.8,95%CI:1.482,5.616 } were statistically significant with
anemia. On the other hand, anemia is found to be independent associated factors of adverse
perinatal outcome; individualwith anemia were 4.1 times more likely to have adverse perinatal
outcome as compared to non-anemic (4.1,95%CI:2.609,6.405).
Conclusion and Recommendation: This study indicated that prevalence of anemia was
moderate public health problems .And women with anemia more likely to develop adverse
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perinatal outcome compared to their counter parts. Therefore, strengthening the provision of
antenatal care and information communication education and behavioral change communication
is better given attention.
