Fig. 2

Impact of microscopic malaria infections at delivery on pregnancy outcomes. Maternal microscopic infections were considered present if P. falciparum parasites were observed in peripheral blood at delivery and/or in the placenta either by microscopy or histology. The dot and T bar represents the mean difference and 95% confidence interval in haemoglobin levels at delivery (a, b), the difference of haemoglobin levels from recruitment to delivery (c, d), or birth weight (e, f) between malaria infected and uninfected women in the multivariate regression analysis adjusted for type of IPTp drug, season, age, gravidity, gestational age, anaemia, literacy, RPR result and MUAC at recruitment, plus CD4 + T cell count at recruitment in the case of HIV-infected women (b, d, f). Modification of the associations by study area (B Benin, G Gabon, K Kenya, M Mozambique) was determined through the inclusion of an interaction term in the regression models, and combination of the coefficients plus the interaction and the standard error was estimated by the delta method