A baby’s vitamin D levels are largely set by its mother, researchers have found.
Lack of vitamin D from diet, supplementation or exposure to sunlight may be involved in many diseases including impaired development and skeletal problems in children, say Professor Declan Naughton Kingston University, UK, and colleagues at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece.
Deficiency in pregnant women has been linked to diabetes, small babies, and increased need for caesarean.
The team set out to understand how vitamin D moves between a pregnant mother and baby. They took vitamin D measurement from samples taken from 60 Greek mother-baby pairs, looking at eight different forms of vitamin D. Many of the mothers had low levels of vitamin D, the researchers report.
They found that the amount of vitamin D in mothers determines 56% of the level found in their newborn babies. They also showed that the type of vitamin D commonly measured in blood tests is not the most reliable indicator of vitamin D status, and two alternative forms of the vitamin have more influence over babies’ levels.
In this month’s Nutrition Journal, the authors write: "These results highlight the need for accurate measurements to appraise vitamin D status."
Professor Naughton commented: "The impact that mothers deficient in vitamin D have on their babies’ levels is a much bigger problem than we thought. Maintaining good supplies during pregnancy is clearly of vital importance for both mothers’ and babies’ long-term health."
Karras, S. N. et al. An observational study reveals that neonatal vitamin D is primarily determined by maternal contributions: implications of a new assay on the roles of vitamin D forms. Nutrition Journal 7 June 2013 doi:10.1186/1475-2891-12-77 [abstract]
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