Pregnant women are physiologically more susceptible to anemia or lack of blood. But this should not be taken lightly, because anemia can cause death in pregnant women during childbirth.
"According to WHO a person is said to anemia if the hemoglobin (Hb) less than 11 mg / dl of blood," said Dr. Inge Permadhi MS, SpGK Nutritalk event: Healthy Inspirations for Women of Indonesia in Hong Kong Cafe, Jakarta, Tuesday (07/06/2011) .
Dr Inge said the mother gave birth to will be injected something into his body to help stop bleeding after childbirth. But if the mother had anemia, injection did not react so that does not constrict blood vessels that make the bleeding continued.
If bleeding can not be resolved then it could lead to death in the mother. Even if he can survive after experiencing post-childbirth bleeding, he would suffer severe blood shortage and prolonged health problems.
Based on data from 2010 Riskesdas known that bleeding were the highest cause of maternal mortality which is 28 percent. And the main cause of this bleeding is anemia and chronic energy deficiency in pregnant women.
"The cause of anemia vary, physiologically during pregnancy the amount of fluid in the body will be more while the red blood cells remain thus causing anemia," said the doctor from the Department of Nutritional Sciences Faculty of medicine.
Dr Inge said there are other causes of anemia such as:
Poor food intake such as nausea and vomiting often
Twin pregnancy
The period is close to the previous pregnancy
Reserves of iron contained in the body of the mother before pregnancy slightly
The existence of infectious diseases such as intestinal worms
Besides causing bleeding, anemia in pregnant women may result in the mother's own and also the fetus. In the mother can cause weight loss hard to ride, abortion (miscarriage), complications of pregnancy, childbirth, childbirth and postpartum.
While the fetus is conceived can cause low birth weight infants (LBW), premature babies, babies born with anemia and complications after birth, such as failure to thrive and low intelligence.
"All the nutrients in pregnant women is important, but there are some nutrients that need more attention are iron, calcium, folic acid, B12 and also protein," he said.
All these nutrients can be obtained from foods such as chicken liver, oysters, red meat, tuna, soy, spinach, broccoli, kidney beans, asparagus, oranges, nuts, low-fat milk, cheese.
"So the supposition that women should eat 2 plates were not true, because what matters is the most nutrients. If you want to add better multiply the protein that could help the growth of children in the womb and note the addition of weight," said Dr. Inge.
Dr. Inge said that for pregnant women who previously had a body mass index (BMI) is normal then the total weight increase of 11.5 to 16.5 kg, to mothers of underweight (weight less), an increase of 12.5 to 18 kg, for mothers who are overweight (overweight), an increase of 7 to 11.5 kg and for mothers who are obese, an increase of 6.8 kg.