European journal of clinical investigation
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · Oct 2003
Impact of parturition on iron status in nonanaemic iron deficiency.
Iron-deficient nonanaemic parturients risk underdiagnosis as a result of the reliance on postpartum ferritin and haemoglobin as markers of iron status. Ferritin is an acute-phase protein whose levels increase during the inflammatory response, as occurs after delivery. Our aims were to evaluate the impact of parturition on iron status, erythropoiesis and the inflammatory response, and identify the optimal parameters and timing for diagnosing iron deficiency in the presence of postpartum inflammation. ⋯ Iron status should be tested prepartum, in the absence of an inflammatory response, rather than in the early postpartum. A valuable additional parameter, where available, might be the hypochromic red cell percentage, which is virtually uninfluenced by the inflammatory response. Furthermore, hypochromic red cell percentage, CHr and sTfR can be helpful to differentiate between functional iron deficiency and depleted iron stores.