(NewsNation) — A new study has found that women who suffer from anemia during pregnancy have a greater chance their newborn will be born with a congenital heart defect.
The study, based in the United Kingdom, determined that anemia in the first 100 days of pregnancy increases the risk of heart defects by about 47%, United Press International reported. The study compared the medical records of 2,800 women in the U.K. who had a child born with a heart defect to those of nearly 14,000 women whose children were born healthy.
The outlet reported that about 4.4% of the mothers whose children had a heart defect were anemic in early pregnancy, compared with 2.8% of mothers who had healthy children.
The study, published last week in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, marks the first time in the U.K. that researchers have found a link between maternal anemia and heart defects in newborns. According to the University of Oxford, the research team estimates anemia may account for around one in 20 congenital heart defects in the U.K.
The usual risk of heart defects is around one in 100.
“We already know that the risk of congenital heart disease can be raised by a variety of factors, but these results develop our understanding of anemia specifically and take it from lab studies to the clinic,” said Duncan Sparrow, lead researcher and associate professor at Oxford’s Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics. “Knowing that early maternal anemia is so damaging could be a game-changer worldwide.”
The team’s research, funded by the British Heart Foundation, will now focus on how taking iron supplements before and during pregnancy could help women avoid these congenital abnormalities.
“Because iron deficiency is the root cause of many cases of anemia, widespread iron supplementation for women — both when trying for a baby and when pregnant — could help prevent congenital heart disease in many newborns before it has developed,” Sparrow said.
The university reported that congenital heart disease is the most common type of birth defect in newborns. It is a significant cause of death in infants.