Regarding the women’s health material from Week 11 and iron deficiency and supplementation in pregnancy, is ferritin the best single test for determining true iron deficiency during pregnancy when hemoglobin levels normally decrease?

Dr. Amy Nett: Ferritin is useful. I would still look at the full iron panel. I would use a full iron panel with hemoglobin. I think you definitely need a ferritin, but I wouldn’t use ferritin alone because, remember, ferritin can be elevated as an acute phase reactant. So if you see a high ferritin and you think, “Great. I don’t have to worry about iron because ferritin is 150,” there could still be low iron stores. So I think ferritin is very helpful in the overall context and including an iron panel with hemoglobin. I think we’ll be going over that more when we look at the blood chemistry section.