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Vitamin D during pregnancy affects kids' bone mass
Vitamin D is required for skeletal growth during infancy and childhood, the team notes, and recent findings raise concerns that low levels of vitamin D during pregnancy may have a deleterious effect.
Dr. Cyrus Cooper, from the University of Southampton, and his colleagues measured levels of vitamin D in blood samples obtained from women during late pregnancy. Their offspring had the mineral content of their bone measured at age 9. The study, reported in the Lancet medical journal, included 160 mother-child pairs.
Mothers with low vitamin D had offspring whose whole-body bone mineral content at 9 years of age was significantly lower than in those born to women with higher levels.
Children born during the summer -- whose mothers were therefore exposed to more sunshine, which triggers vitamin D production -- and children whose mothers took vitamin D supplements had significantly higher bone mineral content.
Cooper's group suggest that giving vitamin D supplements to moms-to-be with low vitamin D levels "especially when the last trimester of pregnancy occurs during the winter months, could lead to an enhanced peak bone-mineral accrual and a reduced risk of fragility fracture in offspring during later life."
SOURCE: Lancet, January 7, 2006.