LAUSR

Objective: To understand the prevalence and epidemiological features of anemia during pregnancy in China. Methods: The literature retrieval was conducted by using China Biology Medicine disc (CBMdisc), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data, China Science and Technology Journal Database (CSTJ), PubMed, Cochrane Library and Embase database. The time was from January 2012 to October 2017, and the language was limited to Chinese and English. The Chinese and corresponding English search terms included pregnancy, anemia, epidemiology and prevalence. Results: A total of 28 papers were included. The total number of participants investigated was 58 752, with 11 588 cases with anemia during pregnancy identified. The overall prevalence of anemia during pregnancy was 19.9% (95%CI: 16.3%-23.5%). The prevalence varied in anemia with different levels. The prevalence of mild, moderate and severe anemia were 15.9% (95%CI: 11.7%-20.2%), 5.7% (95%CI: 4.5%-6.8%) and 1.3% (95%CI: 0.8%-1.8%) respectively. The prevalence of mild anemia was highest and the prevalence of severe anemia was lowest. The prevalence of anemia increased with gestational weeks. The prevalence of anemia at the first, second and third trimester of pregnancy were 10.1% (95%CI: 6.2%-14.0%), 26.7% (95%CI: 18.0%-35.5%) and 28.1% (95%CI: 21.0%-35.1%) respectively. Both degree and gestational week subgroup analysis showed a significant difference among groups (P<0.05). There were no statistically significant differences among subgroups of cut-off year, region, resident area, age, education level and parity (P>0.05). Conclusion: The prevalence of anemia during pregnancy in China had remained at a low level during the past 5 years. The prevalence of mild anemia was higher than that of moderate and severe anemia. The prevalence of anemia in women at the second and third trimester of pregnancy was higher than that at the first trimester of pregnancy. Women at the second and third trimester of pregnancy should be attached a great importance in the prevention and control of anemia during pregnancy.