Is general screening for anemia and iron deficiency justified in nursing infants

OBJECTIVE: To establish the necessity of anemia and iron deficiency screening in breast-feeders in our environment. DESIGN: A crossover study, after data collection from case records. SETTING AND PATIENTS: 93 children of 18 and 24 months living in a urban area. All of them are included in the Healthy Breast-feeder Programme of the Health Center of Teruel city. INTERVENTIONS: Detection in venous blood of hematocrit, hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, transferrin saturation and ferritin in serum. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We founded a 1.1% of anemia with iron deficiency and a 3.4% of latent iron deficiency. We detected a total of 5.4% cases of iron deficiency. We didn't find any statistical significance when comparing the haematic values among children who had received different kinds of milk nor in relation with the time in which they got it. We didn't find either any differences when comparing such values among those who had received iron prophylaxis and those in which this treatment was not considered necessary. CONCLUSIONS: Therefore we suggest selective iron prophylaxis for risk groups and laboratory studies only in those with evident signs of anemia or iron deficiency.