Assessment of‎ knowledge levels and practices of pregnant women about iron deficiency anemia

This study was conducted as a descriptive study to evaluate the knowledge and practices of pregnant women about iron deficiency anemia. ‎The universe of the research; It consists of pregnant women who applied to the Bint Al Huda teaching hospital in Iraq. Data were evaluated using IBM, SPSS and descriptive statistical methods, normality test, T-test, anova test, comparison tests, correlation test. According to the results obtained; 83.7% of pregnant women live in the city, 47.2% do not work, 64.2% have no health problems during their current pregnancy, 82.9% do not smoke during their current pregnancy, 76.4% It was concluded that ‎of ‎women took iron tablets in their previous pregnancies, 53.7% used iron tablets twice a day, and 83.7% thought that there should be a period of 1-3 years between pregnancy and the next pregnancy. In the study, no relationship was found between demographic variables such as age, number of years of education, monthly income, number of pregnancies, average interval between pregnancies and hb and ferritin values. When it comes to the iron level in the body, age, education level, income level; It has been concluded that it has an effect on Hb and ferritin levels. In addition, it was observed that the number of pregnancies and the mean interval between pregnancies had no effect on Hb and ferritin levels. As a result, it was seen that Hb and ferritin values were important for anemia, but were not effective against pregnancy variables. In line with these ‎results; In order to prevent complications that may occur due to iron deficiency anemia, which is a serious threat to maternal and infant health, pregnant women and their families should be informed about the use of iron medication by the health personnel (midwife, nurse, doctor) starting from the preconceptional period or the first trimester of pregnancy.