Pregnancy tips Newborn Babies and Vitamin D

I recall when my daughter was receiving mostly breastmilk, my pediatrician recommended giving her a vitamin D supplement (formula is already fortified with vitamin D). It seems with all of the talk about skin cancer, people are afraid to get a little sun every now and then which could help our bodies get the Vitamin D we need. Here is an article about how newborns may be deficient in vitamin D.

Majority Of Newborns Vitamin D Deficient(aphroditewomenshealth.com)

From the article:

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh say that even regular use of prenatal multivitamin supplements is not adequate to prevent vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy. Writing in the Journal of Nutrition, they warn that vitamin D deficiency in newborns is associated with rickets as well as increased risk for diabetes, asthma and schizophrenia.

Worryingly, the researchers found that vitamin D insufficiency was widespread among women during pregnancy, particularly in the northern latitudes. "More than 80 percent of African-American women and nearly half of white women tested at delivery had levels of vitamin D that were too low, even though more than 90 percent of them used prenatal vitamins during pregnancy," said Lisa Bodnar, lead author of the study. "The numbers also were striking for their newborns - 92 percent of African-American babies and 66 percent of white infants were found to have insufficient vitamin D at birth."

Bodnar explained that a newborn's vitamin D levels were completely reliant on vitamin D from the mother. "Not surprisingly, poor maternal vitamin D status during pregnancy is a major risk factor for infant rickets, which again is becoming a major health problem," she noted.