Abstract
Introduction: Iron deficiency (ID) is the most prevalent nutritional deficiency and the main cause of anemia in infants. There is consensus on daily iron supplementation as a prevention strategy; weekly supplementation was also shown to be effective, but experiences in infants are not sufficient in our region. The aim was to compare the effectiveness of weekly iron administration versus daily administration for the prevention of anemia in infants. Material and
Methods: Randomized controlled clinical trial. Infants treated at the IDIP Health Observatory, without anemia at 3 months of age, were randomized into three groups: daily supplementation (1mg/kg/day), weekly (4mg/kg/week) or without supplementation (reference group with exclusive breastfeeding). Anemia (hemoglobin) and iron deficiency (ferritin) were evaluated at 3 and 6 months. The adherence degree to supplementation and adverse effects were recorded. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee (CIRPI). Registered ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03359447.
Results: 211 infants participated. At 6 months, the reference group had higher prevalence of ID and IDA than the intervened groups (daily and weekly). ID: 43.3% vs. 16.2% and 19.9% (p = 0, 0103); IDA: 36.4% vs. 8.7% and 9.1% (p = 0.007). There were no differences between the daily and weekly groups. There were also no differences in the percentage of high adherence to supplementation (45.8% daily, 59.1% weekly), or in adverse effects.
Conclusions: No significant differences were found in the effectiveness between daily and weekly administration for the prevention of IDA in the infant.
Los contenidos publicados en esta revista están protegidos bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 4.0 Internacional (CC BY 4.0). Esto significa que cualquier persona es libre de compartir, usar y construir a partir de este artículo, incluso con fines comerciales, siempre que se otorgue el crédito apropiado al autor original, se proporcione un enlace a la licencia, se indique el nombre y edición de la Revista.
Esta licencia no impone restricciones adicionales, lo que garantiza la libre circulación y reutilización del conocimiento con respeto y transparencia hacia los derechos de los autores. (Véase El efecto del acceso abierto).