HEalth Issue: Vitramin 'D' for Good Health

Dial D for good health        Vitamin D intake during pregnancy is not only safe for the mother and the baby, but it can also prevent pre-term labour, births and infections, says a new study, The results of the randomised controlled study have been presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.       In the 1950s and 60s, people were concerned that vitamin D could cause birth defects, says Carol L Wagner, MD, lead author of the study and a pediatric researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina. But it is now known that vitamin D is important for maternal and infant health, including bone health and immune function. And recent studies have shown that vitamin D difeciency during pregnancy is a serious public  health issue. "Diet doesn't provide enough vitamin D, and we don't go in the sun as much as we need to," Dr Wagner says.        Therefore, she and her colleagues, including Bruce W Hollis, PhD, who has worked in the field of vitamin D research for the last 30 years, set out to determine the optimal dose of vitamin D supplements for pregnant women without doing harm.        Researchers randomised 494 pregnant women, at 12-16 weeks gestation, into three treatment groups. Group one received 400 International Units (IU) of vitamin D a day until delivery; group two received 2,000 IU. The women were evaluated monthly to ensure safety. "No adverse events related to vitamin D dosing were found in any of the three arms of the study," says Dr Wagner. Investigators also looked at the effects of vitamin D Suplementation on complications during pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, infections. and pre-term labour and birth. "The spectacular part of the study was that it showed that women replete with vitamin D had lower rates of pre-term labour and pre-term birth, and lower rates of infection," the investigators added.