Comparison of oxidative stress in pregnancies with and without first trimester iron supplement: a randomized double-blind controlled trial.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Iron, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Iron supplementation was found to be a cause of oxidative stress.

The aim of this study was to compare oxidative stress in pregnancies with and without iron supplementation in the first trimester pregnancies.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are young adults and adults, women only.

One hundred and eight women in the first trimester of normal pregnancies were randomly assigned to three groups.

Patients were grouped as following: Group 1 received placebo (n = 36), group 2 received folate supplementation (n = 36) and group 3 was directed to the iron supplementation (n = 36).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Iron study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Iron study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Iron could be set against what happens without it.

Oxidative stress was assessed at 14th week of gestation by the utilization of serum γ-glutamyl transferase level.

Pregnancies were followed until delivery.

Relationship between the oxidative stress and pregnancy outcome was assessed among groups.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Dietary Supplements, Folic Acid, Hematinics, Iron, Oxidative Stress, Pregnancy Outcome and Pregnancy Trimester, First.

Author keywords: Iron supplementation and isolated oligohydramnios.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Iron.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2014 (The journal of maternal-fetal & neonatal medicine : the official journal of the European Association of Perinatal Medicine, the Federation of Asia and Oceania Perinatal Societies, the International Society of Perinatal Obstetricians), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.