Abstract

The prevalence of iron deficiency (ID) in infants aged 9–12 months was 23% and 9% had also anaemia in Estonia. ID increases the risk for impaired cognitive and motor development in infants. Therefore, it is important to prevent ID and its development into anaemia. Primary prevention of ID consists in provision of recommendations for infant feeding (breastfeeding or infant formula feeding up to 4–6 months, supplementary food at 6 months, meat at 7 months, cow’s milk after 1 year). Secondary prevention consists in screening infants at the age of 9–12 months: measurement of serum ferritin and haemoglobin concentration and mean red cell volume (MCV) and concentration of serum soluble transferrin receptors (sTfR).
The best cut-off values for diagnosing ID and the reference values (5th and 95th centiles) for ferritin are < 10.9 μg/L (4–55), for MCV < 71 fl (68–80), for sTfR > 2.4 mg/L (1.5–2.7) in the IDeA® and 7.4 mg/L (4.1–7.8) Tina-quant® method and for haemoglobin < 107 g/L (101–128) in infants aged 9–12 months. For diagnosis of ID, haemoglobin test had lower sensitivity compared to other tests. Therefore, measurement of only haemoglobin is not recommended.