Association between anemia and preeclampsia: a case control study in Gorontalo region, Indonesia

Background: Preeclampsia is one of the most common health problems in pregnancy that relates to several risk factors leading to an increase in maternal and perinatal mortality. The risk factors for preeclampsia include maternal age ≥35 years old, primigravida, chronic hypertension, obesity, and history of preeclampsia. However, studies investigating anemia as a risk factor for preeclampsia were still limited and showed conflicting results. This study aims to investigate the association between anemia and preeclampsia.Methods: A case-control study was conducted in the department of obstetrics and gynecology Dr. M. M. Dunda public hospital, Indonesia, from December 2020 to May 2021. Secondary data was collected in singleton pregnancy patients aged <35 years, admitted from 2016 to 2020. The number of patients used in this study was 264 consisting of 132 preeclampsia and 132 healthy women. Patient basic characteristics, obstetrics status, urinalysis, and complete blood count were collected and analysed using SPSS 25 for Mac. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was done to examine data distribution. Chi-square was used to analyse the association between anemia and preeclampsia, p<0.05 is considered to be statistically significant.Results: BMI was found significantly higher in preeclampsia group (p<0.000), and infants born to mothers with preeclampsia had lower birth weight and height compared to the control group with p-value respectively p<0.032 and p<0.001. There was no significant association between anemia and pre-eclampsia (p=0.712; p>0.05).Conclusions: Preeclampsia is significantly associated with higher maternal BMI and lower birth weight/height. However, no association was identified between anemia and preeclampsia