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a bout half of t he women who ha d this condition in early
pregnanc y . This raises serious questions about the control cr
anaemia in pr egnancy i n the country.
The r ecor ded ra t e of anaemia at the time o f labour noted
i n thls s tudy i s about twice the r ates r eported in studies i n
Chad (152] and Casablanc a, Morocco [156J. whe r e t he f igures
wer e 25 \ and 18% r e s pectively. I t i s a l s o s imilarly h i g he r
than t he ra te of 22 \ in Newf cundlend , canada [2 50 ) . Much
higher r ates o f a nae mia in pregnancy occ ur in West Africa t ha n
elsewhere and thIs stUdy r es ults t hus re flects the not i ced
trend (146) .
In sp ite of the h i gh r a t es of preqncncy and labour risk
f ac t ors not ed in the study samp le, the women had re latively
uncomplicated va gi nal deliveries. Approxi mately five percent
(S .U) of th em had pr ol onged l abour s of 24 hours or more .
Primary postpartum haemorr hage occ urred i n 7.4% of SUbjects,
a rate wh ic h i s comparable to rates r epor t ed currently in
North Americ a ( 162] .
The episiot omyrate in su bject.s was 21. 6% , a figure which
is les s than the rates rep orted in llIany wester n countries
[119 , 122] . Perineal tears occ urred i n 12 .7% of the vc-ien r i n
the vast major i ty (78 .3%) these wer e first degrees t ears . A
t hird degree tear ....as the most sev ere t ear noted and occurred
in only one SUbj ect. This lower ge nital tract tear rate is