The Iron Losses of Healthy Women During Consecutive Menstrual Cycles

Menstrual Characteristics of Women Living in a Tropical Climate

“…For this reason a great deal of reliance could not be placed on such a method of assessing the amount of blood lost. The mean number of pads used for one menstruation, however, was almost the same as that found by Millis (1951) in Australia, and was within the range found by Allen (1933) in America. There was, therefore, no evidence that menstrual losses were affected by living in a tropical climate.…”

Community study of menstrual iron loss and its association with iron deficiency anaemia.

“…These data have been re-examined and found to suggest the unexpected conclusion that those with higher haemoglobin levels have higher menstrual losses (r =0 43). Data presented by Millis (1951) for fourteen nurses suggest the same conclusion (r =0 28) though in neither these data nor in those of Barer and Fowler (1938) is the trend statistically significant at P<0 05. There is therefore considerable conflict in the evidence presented and the conclusions drawn in previously published studies.…”

“…On the other hand, Haden and Singleton (1933) stated that menorrhagia is not responsible for iron deficiency, though they presented no data directly supporting this statement, and Barer and Fowler (1936) and Rankin, Veall, Huntsman, and Liddell (1962) stated that they found no convincing evidence of an association between blood loss and haemoglobin level. Millis (1951) stated that his subject showed no consistent relationship between haemoglobin levels and the duration of the menstrual cycle, and Barer and Fowler (1938) stated that the degree of anaemia did not parallel the amount of blood lost. Barer and Fowler (1938) presented data for a rather ill-defined group of eighteen women who either complained of menorrhagia or had been admitted to hospital with hypochromic anaemia which seemed to be partly attributable to menstrual loss even when the women thought their losses were normal.…”

Menstrual Blood Loss and Iron Deficiency

“…In four series (1, 2, 7, 17), however, considerably higher mean values were observed (45-70 ml). Two of these series comprised only a few subjects (7,17). In the other two series, subjects were accepted as normals when the hemoglobin concentration exceeded 10.2 and 10.4 g/100 ml, respectively (1,2).…”