A new study has found that pregnant women who are also anaemic double their risk of mortality during and shortly after pregnancy, and has urged health professionals to use a multifaceted approach for treating the disease in soon-to-be mothers.

Pregnant women with anaemia are twice as likely to die during or shortly after pregnancy, compared to those without the condition, according to a study. The study involved over 300,000 women across 29 countries. Anaemia -- a condition characterised by the lack of healthy red blood cells affects 32 million pregnant women worldwide and up to half of all pregnant women in low and middle-income countries.

These women are at an increased risk of anaemia due to higher rates of dietary iron deficiency, inherited blood disorders, nutrient deficiencies and infections such as malaria, HIV, and hookworm. The study, led by one of an Indian-origin and published in the journal The Lancet Global Health, showed that the odds of maternal death were twice as high in those with severe anaemia compared with those without severe anaemia. Severe anaemia was defined as antenatal or postnatal haemoglobin concentrations of less than 70 g/L in a blood sample obtained before death.

"If a woman develops severe anaemia at any point in her pregnancy or in the seven days after delivery, she is at a higher risk of dying, making urgent treatment even more important," said Jahnavi Daru, a post-doctoral student at London's Queen Mary University. "Anaemia is a readily treatable condition but the existing approaches so far have not been able to tackle the problem. Clinicians, policy makers, and healthcare professionals should now focus their attention on preventing anaemia, using a multifaceted approach, not just hoping that iron tablets will solve the problem," Daru said.

Strategies for the prevention and treatment of maternal anaemia include providing oral iron tablets for pregnant women, food fortification with iron, improving access to antenatal care in remote areas, hookworm treatment, and access to transfusion services, the researchers added. For the study, the team looked at World Health Organization (WHO) data on 3,12,281 pregnancies in 29 countries across Latin America, Africa, Western Pacific, Eastern Mediterranean, and South East Asia. Of these, 4,189 women had severe anaemia and were matched with 8,218 women without severe anaemia.