Maternal serum Ferritin levels and its effect on cord blood hemoglobin in patients with Gestational diabetes mellitus

Introduction

• GDM is common health problem with prevalence 1-5% and is responsible for various genetic and structural abnormalities.
• Serum ferritin maintains iron stores. Iron has strong oxidative properties and cause various metabolic abnormalities like GDM.
• GDM causes increase oxygen consumption and results in increased erythropoiesis complemented with vasculopathy which limits iron transport in cord hemoglobin despite increase fetal demand. The causal relationship between GDM, Ferritin & cord blood hemoglobin is still under debate
• Objective

• To Find out the association between serum ferritin levels to cord blood hemoglobin in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.

• Discussion 
• •   The mean age of all participants was 29.2 ± 5.6 with 72% of multigravida were suffering from GDM. This finding is consistent with a study done at a university hospital in Saudi Arabia.
  •  Our study showed significantly high ferritin i.e., 42.3 ± 6.7 levels and iron levels i.e.,106± among GDM females as opposed to those with normal pregnancy who had a mean serum ferritin level of 34.4 ± 3.8, these findings were comparable with Guo W et. al study.
  • On evaluation of neonatal parameters cord hemoglobin was significantly lower among newborns of GDM mothers than non-GDM patients. Similar results were observed in a study conducted at El-Nile Insurance Hospital, Shubra El Khema.
  • The weight of newborns and placenta were significantly higher in babies of GDM mothers consistent with Chuhan et. al. results.
  • Similar negative correlation between serum ferritin and cord hemoglobin was observed in another study conducted at Isfahan hospital.
  o Find out the association between serum ferritin levels to cord blood hemoglobin in Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.