Would the efficacy of a prophylaxis prenatal vitamin decrease complications and healthcare cost to the mother and baby if a prenatal vitamin was given to all childbearing aged women in high risk pregnancy populations compared to just a 6 to 8 mg iron content of the multivitamin over a period of five years?
The hypothesis that women in low income situations that cannot seek multiple prenatal or perinatal care appointments would benefit from additional supplementation like a prenatal vitamin for iron deficiency. Women who do not seek medical care as much as recommended are at increased risk for anemia from the start of menses through the childbearing years. This risk is even higher when the woman becomes pregnant.
Clinical …show more content…
Research does not answer this question because most study’s that are performed on prenatal vitamins the women are already pregnant or are striving to actively be pregnant (Sfakianaki, 2013). Since the daily multivitamins come with many different strengths of the contents, research shows that there is not enough data or evidence to recommend a certain multivitamin to the average non-pregnant female (Sfakianaki, 2013). However, high evidence was found with recommendations for folic acid intake while pregnant in the Cochrane review of randomized and quasirandomized clinical trials (Sfakianaki, 2013). The gap in research is the general population’s vitamin recommendations because for most vitamins the results are shown as biased due to cofounding variables (Sfakianaki, 2013). Also, trials on multivitamins in the general female population have biased results because women were not in high risk categories like low income, poor healthcare access, and limited insurance (Sfakianaki, 2013). In fact, the women in the trials were in a high socioeconomically stable, nonsmokers, higher …show more content…
Two sample groups would be necessary for this study. Group one would be non-pregnant women on a prenatal vitamin, and group two would be non-pregnant women on a multivitamin. A sample setting of 100 women per group between 17 to 40 years of age who want to become pregnant in the next 5 years. Women who have has a tubal ligation or have no desire to become pregnant will be excluded from the sample. A community health fair would be a great place to gather interested participants. Quantitative research by drawing lab work for iron panels before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after delivery would be ideal. This would provide the research with precise measurement of the iron levels in non-pregnant women on a prenatal vitamin verses the non-pregnant women on a regular multivitamin (Ebling Library, 2016). Once pregnancy was achieved, then take the complications of low birth weights and premature births and compare to the groups of women on a prenatal vitamin prior to pregnancy verses women who did not start the prenatal vitamin prior to pregnancy. Iron panel comparisons to the mother complications and child complications would be reviewed and set into small subgroups to compare iron levels throughout the process. A quick, easy to read questionnaire would be handed out regarding mother and infant complications listed so that