Iron status and infants feeding practice in children with anaemia.

A cross sectional study was carried out in the then IPGM&R now (Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh) to detect the pattern of feeding practice among the anemic children who were below 2 years of age and to find out a relationship between feeding practice and iron status. Hemoglobin was measured on finger prick blood samples using Haemoglobinometer. A peripheral blood film, and serum-ferritin was estimated by micro particle enzyme-immonoassay (MEIA). A dietary questionnaire was completed with particular emphasis on the type of feeding, breast and formula and at which age the weaning was introduced. 140 clinically suspected anemic patients were selected randomly for this study. Among them 111 (79.3%) patient had hemoglobin value ranging between 7.2-6.4 gm and their serum-ferritin level at or below 12 ngm/ml. It was observed that female children were predominantly affected and incidentally all patients were malnourished. In this study it was found that babies with an exclusive diet of breast milk were mildly anemic and not deficient in iron. On the contrary infants with mixed feeding habits or prolonged breast-feeding without weaning at all or babies devoid of any breast milk had moderate to severe anaemia and all were deficient in iron.