Vitamin D levels during pregnancy and infant brain development
 

Vitamin D levels during pregnancy and infant brain development

Posted on November 9, 2012 by John Cannell, MD


In a landmark study, Dr Eva Morales of the Center for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Spain and numerous colleagues wanted to know if maternal vitamin D deficiency has an effect on human brain development. As you may know, a recent study in Pediatrics found a strong association between maternal vitamin D deficiency and impaired language development in the child.

Whitehouse AJ, Holt BJ, Serralha M, Holt PG, Kusel MM, Hart PH. Maternal serum vitamin D levels during pregnancy and offspring neurocognitive development. Pediatrics. 2012 Mar;129(3):485-93.

Dr Morales and colleagues measured vitamin D levels in 1820 pregnant women. When the infant was 14 months of age, neurocognitive and psychomotor testing revealed that mothers with levels above 40 ng/ml had infants with the best brains. The improvement curve appears to slightly improve with a maternal level of 50 ng/ml, but the difference does not appear to be significant, as the curve flattens out around those two levels.

Morales E, Guxens M, Llop S, Rodríguez-Bernal CL, Tardón A, Riaño I, Ibarluzea J, Lertxundi N, Espada M, Rodriguez A, Sunyer J; on behalf of the INMA Project. Circulating 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 in Pregnancy and Infant Neuropsychological Development. Pediatrics. 2012 Sep 17.

http://blog.vitamindcouncil.org/201...in-development/

Increasingly it appears that low maternal levels of vitamin D have long-lasting ill effects on the child’s brain function.

I have to tell you thank you for all of your information on vitamin D3 during pregnancy. Michael is my 3rd child and the only one who didn't have jaundice. He is gorgeous and brilliant!

Yay! Congrats!

Congratulations on the birth of your healthy, gorgeous, and billiant child.

Glad what I posted helped, lol!!