الفهرس 
Normal Micronutrients supplementOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Maternal micronutrients are essential for growth and development of newborns. It is frequently seen in developing countries, may be an important cause of IUGR. Supplementation of undernourished mothers with micronutrients has several benefits but there is little hard evidence of improved fetal growth. Maternal energy and protein deficiency are clearly associated with IUGR. Likely, other forms of under nutrition as micronutrients deficiencies are associated with IUGR. Recent interest has turned to micronutrients as possible limiting factors for fetal growth. Some micronutrients are structural components of body tissues. Others are essential for the process of growth, including energy and protein metabolism, gene transcription, endocrine function and nutrient transport.
The goals for this study were to determine the relation between maternal micro nutrients specifically iron, folic acid and vitamin B12 and birth outcomes as regards gestational age of the newborns and their anthropometric measures; weight, length and head circumference.
The study included 100 post-partum mothers attended the obstetric department for delivery. Fifty (50%) cases were included in this study who gave birth to preterm or low birth weight and another fifty (50%) mothers were considered as control group who gave birth to full term infants and appropriate for gestational age. Then history was taken from the mothers, examination of the newborns especially anthropometric measures (weight, length and head circumference) and assessing gestational age, finally laboratory investigation done to the mothers including Hb level, serum iron, TIBC, serum folic acid and serum vitamin B12.
Our results revealed that the relation between maternal iron deficiency anemia and premature births was statistically significant in contrast to maternal Folic acid and vitamin B12 deficiency anemia. Also there was no statistical significance between all types of maternal anemias in our study and newborn anthropometric measures.
We concluded that maternal Iron deficiency anemia has a positive relation to premature births but has no relation to birth weight, newborn length or head circumference. While maternal Folic acid and vitamin B12 deficiency anemias have no association with gestational age or newborn anthropometric measures.