Simple Test for Ingested Iron in Hospital and Domiciliary Practice

Abstract

Widespread use of iron preparations has resulted from recog nition of the greater metabolic requirement of iron in pregnancy. The side-effects ascribed to these drugs by patients have made many practitioners doubt that all their patients carry out the prescribed treatment. Indeed, one practitioner has observed that when the antenatal patients were given an iron preparation and told that these tablets were vitamins they would remind liim that they had finished the supply. This was a rare occurrence before the subterfuge was practised. Failure to take the tablets results in a toxic substance lingering in a household often containing children. Also patients may be labelled improperly as cases of iron-resistant pregnancy anaemia, with consequent resort to parenteral iron or blood transfusion?