ArticleBMC pregnancy and childbirth2025
Estimating the impact of maternal anemia on low-birth-weight in Sub-Saharan African countries: propensity score matching analysis.
Article in BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Preoperative Hemoglobin Threshold as a Predictor of Transfusion Risk in Pregnant Patients: An Observational Study for Informing Patient Blood Management Strategies in a Tertiary Care Facility in Romania.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Observational
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLow birth weight is the main cause of death, illness, and disability in infancy and childhood and has a lasting effect on adult healing here are several studies that indicate the correlation between low birth weight and anemia using an observational study based on the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) but there are limited studies to show the direct effect of anemia on low birth weight. Therefore, we used the propensity score-matching (PSM) analysis to estimate the actual impact of maternal anemia on low birth weight babies. The study aims to reveal the effect of maternal anemia on low birth weight babies among reproductive-age women using propensity score matching analysis from the Demographic and Health Survey in Sub-Saharan Africa. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: Pregnancy-related maternal nutritional deficiencies impact the fetus’s development, which in turn affects the newborn’s birth weight. The initiative to conduct this study is that most of the time mothers suffer from anemia and at the same time they deliver low birth weight children. LBW newborns had a 20-fold increased risk of morbidity and death compared to normal. Despite the burden of maternal anemia on low birth weight the direct relation with controlling other factors to show their direct cause and effect is not well studied.
methodA community-based cross-sectional study was conducted based on the DHS data. We used the recent DHS data of 27 Sub-Saharan African countries. A total of 54,904 women with at least one birth in the last five years were considered. To estimate the impact of anemia on low birth weight, we used PSM analysis with a logit model using psmatch2 ate STATA command to find the average treatment effect on the population (ATE), treated and untreated. The quality of matching was assessed statistically and graphically. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to test the robustness of the PSM estimates using the Mantel- Haenszel test statistic.
resultsThe prevalence of anemia in sub-Saharan Africa was 41.62%. The prevalence rate of low birth weight was 20.1%. In the PSM analysis, the difference in ATE of anemia on low birth weight was 13.0%. The difference in ATE among the treated group was 2.44% increased risk of low birth weight. The ATE in the treated group had a 12.1% increased risk of low birth weight. The estimates were insensitive to hidden bias and had a good quality of matching.
conclusionAnemia has a strong effect on low birth weight after matching treated and control groups of observed variables. Reducing maternal anemia for improved birth outcomes or increasing fetal birth weight requires treating anemia before and during the early stages of pregnancy, as well as providing regular nutrition instruction and counseling during routine ANC follow-up. The involvement of stakeholders in the treatment of anemia is warranted to decrease the rate of LBW and its late consequences.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.