Abstract:

Background information: Anaemia has been defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a condition in which the number of red blood cells (RBCs) or their oxygen carrying capacity is inadequate to meet physiologic demands in the body. In developing countries, anaemia is a cause of serious concern as it contributes significantly to high maternal mortality. The study done in Nigeria showed antenatal centre more women were anemic in second trimester of pregnancy. 9.8% of the enrolled women booked for antenatal care in the first trimester while 63.5% booked in second trimester and 26.6% in the third trimester of their pregnancies.

Method: This was a descriptive cross sectional study which involved 260 women attending antenatal clinic at Makongoro health centre conducted at September 2019. Only those who gave informed consent and met inclusion criteria were included in the study. Data was collected by interview through a structured questionnaire. Management and analysis of data was done using SPSS software version 20.

Results: A total 260 pregnancy women were interviewed. The prevalence of 184(70.8%) were reported to have anaemia, where by 113 (61.4%) had mild anaemia, 61(33.2%) had moderate anemia and 10 (5.4%) had severe anaemia. Significant associations were found between occupation, age, education level and marital status of those women.

Conclusion: There is high prevalence of anaemia in pregnancy women at Makongoro health centre, hence the ministry of health in collaboration with other relevant ministries should policies on health education to the community on the importance of antenatal visit as it can make early detection and treatment of anaemia.