Objective: To study the effectiveness of the rapid red blood cell zinc protorphyrin (RBC-ZPP) test for the detection of women with iron-deficiency anemia in the peripartum period.
Design: Blood was drawn prospectively from 150 healthy parturient women upon admission to the labor and delivery room and 72 hours after delivery. Concentration of RBC-ZPP was measured and correlated with hemoglobin level (p = 0.001), mean corpuscular volume (p = 0.002), hematocrit (p = 0.0001), platelet count (p = 0.002), and serum iron (p = 0.0001), serum ferritin (p = 0.0001) and serum transferrin (p = 0.0001) concentrations.
Results: RBC-ZPP concentration showed a significant increase from pre-delivery to 72 hours post-delivery. This change correlated significantly with the changes in all the other parameters studied.
Conclusion: The RBC-ZPP test is a reliable, rapid, easy-to-perform, and inexpensive method of screening low-risk women, after uneventful vaginal delivery, for iron deficiency.