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  • Title: Vitamin A deficiency in the mother-infant dyad.
    Author: Stoltzfus RJ.
    Journal: SCN News; 1994; (11):25-7. PubMed ID: 12288232.
    Abstract:
    Vitamin A is transferred from mother to child via the placenta during gestation and in breastmilk during lactation. The mammalian strategy for providing vitamin A to offspring is to ensure that the fetus acquires adequate but small amounts of the vitamin during gestation, and to provide plentiful vitamin A postnatally through breastmilk so that the infant rapidly builds protective stores of vitamin A. Maternal vitamin A deficiency can naturally compromise these otherwise normal processes. Animal models of severe vitamin A deficiency have shown that maternal vitamin A deficiency during pregnancy results in placental dysfunction, stillbirths, and congenital malformations, while maternal vitamin A deficiency during lactation rapidly disposes the nursing child to severe vitamin A deficiency. The author considers vitamin A deficiency during pregnancy and fetal health, vitamin A deficiency during lactation, and vitamin A deficiency and women's health. The main way to improve the vitamin A status of women and breastfed infants is to improve the dietary intake of vitamin A for women and their families. Achieving this goal will likely require a combination of strategies such as improving women's knowledge about vitamin A food sources and their preparation, increasing the availability of vitamin-A containing foods, increasing families' food purchasing power, and fortifying key food items with vitamin A. Direct supplementation of lactating mothers and/or infants with vitamin A may be warranted until dietary goals are fully achieved, to prevent subclinical vitamin A deficiency, in vitamin A deficient communities, and in areas where night blindness is experienced by women in pregnancy.
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