Objective: In order to understand the anemic prevalence in the infants and young children and its relation to the feeding pattern at 0-6 months and on economic income.
Methods: A questionnaire survey were used to collect the information on nutritional and health status of infants and young children (6 to 23 months) living in poverty-rural areas of Gansu Province, and hemoglobin concentration was measured.
Results: The prevalence of anemia was 58.2% in the children aged from 6 months to 23 months. The rate of anemia in boys was higher than that of the girls (61.0% and 55.1%), but there was no significant difference. There were significant differences in hemoglobin levels among different age groups (F = 5.206, P < 0.01). The child's hemoglobin concentration was trend to significantly decrease from 6-month-old and more, and reach to the lowest level at 12 months of age and more. After that, the hemoglobin began to gradually increase with age. The change of hemoglobin concentration was consistent with anemic prevalence, the higher prevalence of anemia was the group aged 6-month-old and more, and the group aged 12-month-old and more had highest prevalence. There were significant difference among the different feeding pattern on the anemic prevalence (chi2 = 9.245, P < 0.05), and the prevalence of anemia in children fed with infant formula had the lowest anemic rate and was significantly lower than those of the mixed feeding and breastfeeding children (chi2 = 8.529 and 7.173, P < 0.05). The living economic conditions were a linear trend with the hemoglobin level of children, but there was no significant difference among the different feeding groups (F = 0.637, P > 0.05). The better household economic conditions, tends to have the lower in anemic prevalence, but there was no significant difference (chi2 = 1.666, P > 0.05).
Conclusion: The children had lowest hemoglobin level and highest anemic prevalence in the group aged 12-month-old and more, the anemic prevalence of children fed with infant formula had significantly lower than those of the mixed feeding and breastfeeding children, and family economic status on the prevalence of anemia was not obvious. The present results showed that we should focus on the prevention and improvement of iron status and anemia in infants more than 6-months and young children.