Overview

This guideline provides global, evidence-informed recommendations on daily iron and folic acid supplementation in pregnant women as a public health intervention for the purpose of improving pregnancy outcomes and reducing maternal anaemia in pregnancy.

The guideline will help Members States and their partners in their efforts to make informed decisions on the appropriate nutrition actions to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, in particular, reduction of child mortality (MDG 4) and improvement in maternal health (MDG 5). The guideline is intended for a wide audience including policy-makers, their expert advisers, and technical and programme staff at organizations involved in the design, implementation and scaling-up of nutrition actions for public health.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Summary
• Scope and purpose
• Background
• Summary of evidence
• Recommendation
• Remarks
• Implications for future research
• Dissemination, adaptation and implementation
  • Dissemination
  • Adaptation and implementation
  • Monitoring and evaluation of guideline implementation
• Guideline development process
  • Advisory groups
  • Scope of the guideline, evidence appraisal and decision-making
• Management of conflicts of interest
• Plans for updating the guideline
• References
• Annex 1. GRADE “Summary of findings” tables
• Annex 2. Summary of the considerations by the Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group for determining the strength of the recommendation
• Annex 3. WHO Steering Committee for Nutrition Guidelines Development
• Annex 4. Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group (NUGAG) – Micronutrients, WHO Secretariat and external resource experts
  • A Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group – Micronutrients
  • B WHO
  • C WHO regional offices
  • D Experts extérieurs
• Annex 5. External Experts and Stakeholders Panel – Micronutrients
• Annex 6. Questions in Population, Intervention, Control, Outcomes (PICO) format

This publication is a WHO guideline. A WHO guideline is any document, whatever its title, containing WHO recommendations about health interventions, whether they be clinical, public health or policy interventions. A recommendation provides information about what policy-makers, health-care providers or patients should do. It implies a choice between different interventions that have an impact on health and that have ramifications for the use of resources. All publications containing WHO recommendations are approved by the WHO Guidelines Review Committee.

WHO thanks the Government of Luxembourg for providing financial support for this work.

Suggested citation:

WHO. Guideline: Daily iron and folic acid supplementation in pregnant women. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2012.

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