Prevalence of Anemia and Its Determinants Among Pregnant, Lactating, and Nonpregnant Nonlactating Women in India

What is it about?

Anaemia is the widespread blood disorder, affecting about one-third of the world population and causing about 183,000 deaths in 2013. It is more common in women than men, pregnant and lactating women than non-pregnant and non-lactation women. In women of reproductive age, anaemia increases costs of medical care and lowers a person's productivity through a decreased ability to work and also a major cause of maternal mortality and poor pregnancy outcomes. Despite several targeted policies and programmes for combating anaemia, India is the home for largest number of anaemic women in the world. However, the burden of anaemia has not been uniformly distributed among the women of different reproductive stages. Therefore, the prime objective of this study was to examine the prevalence and determinants of aneamia among pregnant and lactating versus non-pregnant non-lactating (NP-NL) women in India by using the data from National Family Health Survey-3. The results reveal that the prevalence of anaemia was found to be higher among lactating women (63%), followed by pregnant women (59%) than NP-NL women (53%). Results also suggest that targeting demographic and program factor, along with key socio-economic factors in public health policy is critical to reduce anaemia among lactating and pregnant women, while targeting significant socio-economic factors is the key to reduce anaemia among NP-NL women. Improving socio-demographic and programme factors highlighted in the study is a critical step for eliminating the problem of maternal anaemia in the country. Unless India overcomes the problem of chronic maternal anaemia, it is difficult to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of maternal and child health and mortality.

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