Many groups of pregnant women are at high risk of being vitamin D deficient

Created April 2013

Vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy - still a public health issue.

Matern Child Nutr. 2013 Jan;9(1):23-30. doi: 10.1111/mcn.12014.

McAree T, Jacobs B, Manickavasagar T, Sivalokanathan S, Brennan L, Bassett P, Rainbow S, Blair M.

North West London Hospital NHS Trust, RNOH NHS Trust, Harrow, UK. trixie.mcaree@nhs.net

The objectives of this study were to quantify the prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency in pregnancy, explore associated risk factors and discuss the public health implications. The study used retrospective analysis of randomly selected data. This is the first report on serum vitamin D levels in an unselected multi-ethnic population of pregnant women collected between April 2008 and March 2009.

Women with sufficient stored serum were randomly selected from among all women who delivered between April 2008 and March 2009. Serum vitamin D levels were determined using liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry.

Vitamin D levels were analysed with respect to

  • ethnicity (marking skin tone),

  • calendar quartile,

  • body mass index (BMI),

  • trimester and

  • parity.

Deficiency was defined as <25 nmol L(-1) , insufficiency 25-75 nmol L(-1) and adequacy >75 nmol L(-1) .

Three hundred and forty-six women were included and represented the total population regarding skin tone, quartile, BMI, gestation and parity.

Overall, 18% [95% confidence interval (CI): 15-23%] of sample women had adequate vitamin D levels; 36% were deficient, 45% insufficient.

Among women with dark skin , only 8% (95% CI: 5-12%) had adequate levels compared with 43% (95% CI: 33-53%) of those with light skin.

Obese women were found have significantly lower vitamin D levels than non-obese women.

Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency are prevalent year-round among pregnant women in North West London, especially those with darker skin.

Existing supplementation guidelines should be supported; however, other measures are required to improve status among all women.

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. PMID: 23230904

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High Risk Groups

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PDF is attached at the bottom of this page

High Risk if a woman is pregnant with just one of the following

Much higher risk if in more than one: e.g. dark skin and recent birth

  • dark skin

  • obese trimester (the most bone growth)

  • winter

  • recent birth (about 15 months for mom's body to re-stock vitamin D)

  • twins, triplets, etc.

  • have a vitamin D deficiency related disease (MS, diabetes, . . . )

    • especially diseases which are in vicious cycles ( low D ==> disease ==> lower D)

Vitamin D deficiency has gotten much worse in England in the past 40 years

  1. More obese women

  2. More Dark Skin women

  3. More women wearing concealing clothes

  4. 15 reasons for the vitamin D decrease in the past 40 years which has the following chart

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Chart of 2008 actual , and guessed 1978 vitamin D levels in England

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See also VitaminDWiki
IU Cumulative Benefit Blood level Cofactors Calcium $*/year
400 Less Rickets (but not zero with 400 IU)
3X less adolescent Schizophrenia
Fewer child seizures		 20-30 ng/ml Not needed No effect $3
2000 2X More likely to get pregnant naturally/IVF
2X Fewer dental problems with pregnancy
8X less diabetes
4X fewer C-sections (>37 ng)
4X less preeclampsia (40 ng vs 10 ng)
[tiki-download_file.php?fileId=1541]
2X fewer language problems age 5		 42 ng/ml Desirable < 750 mg $15
4000 2X fewer pregnancy complications
2X fewer pre-term births		 49 ng/ml Must have
cofactors		 < 750 mg $75
6000 Probable: larger benefits for above items
Perhaps prevent 2nd autistic child
    clinical trials underway
Just enough D for breastfed infant		 Must have
cofactors		 < 750 mg $85

Some recent studies of Pregnancy and Vitamin D behind firewalls as of April 2013

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23547547 Vitamin d supplementation for women during pregnancy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23168244 Vitamin D in pregnancy at high latitude in Scotland.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23533189 Vitamin D sufficiency in pregnancy. free 7 day trial firewall

Tags: Pregnancy