The hemoglobin is the ferric pigment that the red globules take inside, by means of which they distribute the oxygen in the textiles of the organism. The red globules in normal conditions live through approximately 3 months, after which they are destroy you in the spleen. An anemia is the situation in which the number of red globules (and therefore the concentration of circulating hemoglobin) is disminuído. There are many causes of anemia in the newborn babies.

Physiological anemia of the nursing one. During 2 ó the first 3 months of life, the circulating hemoglobin diminishes gradually, since the red globules of the newborn baby have a minor life expectancy (90 days, instead of 120 days of life in the adult). This situation is normal and she does not need treatment.

Anemia of the prematurity. The speed of descent of the hemoglobin and his rock bottom are more pronounced in the premature babies. This picture owes fundamentally at the highest speed of growth of the premature babies. Also, the blood extracted to the nursing sick premature babies with analytical ends exaggerates moreover the red blood corpuscles fall. The lowest value of concentration of the hemoglobin is reached usually after approximately 6 weeks in the premature babies. There are no studies that they demonstrate that either the transfusions, or the treatment with iron, turn out to be beneficial in the anemia of the prematurity.

Anemia ferropénica of the nursing one. It owes to a shortcoming of iron, without which it is not possible to make the hemoglobin of the red globules. The newborn babies who receive artificial formulae must receive supplements of iron (2 mg of elementary / kg / day iron). Otherwise, they will use his iron reservations and will exhaust them after 10 to 14 weeks, if they are premature, and after approximately 5 months if they went to term.

It happens when a woman Rh negativa has a Rh-Positive fetus. Some (incompatible) fetal red blood corpuscles cross the afterbirth and induce an immune answer of maternal antibodies, which later cross the afterbirth and go on to the fetus, in which they provoke illness hemolítica: the red globules of the newborn baby are destroyed quickly and an anemia takes place.

The first immunization can happen for an abortion or a pregnancy with Rh-Positive fetus. The gravity increases in the following pregnancies and each of the later newborn babies has more probabilities of being affected. The fetuses more seriously affected develop an intense anemia (eritroblastosis fetal) with fetal death intrauterina, or they are born with a fetal dropsy (distension generalized). Shortly after the birth, the patients usually develop the serious one hiperbilirrubinemia due to the effect hemolítico continuously of the antibodies anti-Rh that crossed the afterbirth.