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Maternal Effects
Vitamin D deficiencies among are more coming among childbearing women with higher pigmented skin. Vitamin D deficiencies in childbearing women have proven to cause a number of problems on their offspring. Among these issues are childhood rickets and long-term problems such as schizophrenia and type 1 diabetes.

Another study found that maternal vitamin D deficiency led to cardiac hypertrophy in rat offspring. Vitamin D deficiency also plays a role in the development of common chronic diseases. Using the vitamin D receptor, vitamin D has the ability to produce a large variety of favorable biological effects. These effects play a critical role in the development of a child during pregnancy.

Vitamin D insufficiency has been associated with a greater risk of preeclampsia, insulin resistance and gestational diabetes Vitamin D is found to be necessary in the development of a fetus during brain development and is proven to have many immunological functions. Vitamin D deficiency may also affect the susceptibility soon after birth and later on in life of chronic diseases.

Low levels of vitamin D and calcium are correlated to increased cardiovascular mortality, cancer mortality, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. With age, vitamin D deficiencies have been proven to increase the risk of falls among elderly. Maternal effects and screening for vitamin D deficiencies are currently being studied in order to implement by doctors.

Maternal Vitamin D Deficiency Leads to Cardiac Hypertrophy
In a study conducted at Monash University in Australia, it was found that mothers with a vitamin D deficiency gave birth to offspring that later developed cardiac hypertrophy. This study was conducted in order to determine the effect of vitamin D deficiency from the time of conception until the age of four weeks in the development of the heart in the rat offspring.

Rats were fed a vitamin D deficient or a vitamin D sufficient diet for six weeks prior to pregnancy, throughout the pregnancy and during lactation. The number of cardiac muscles was determined at the age of three days old and four weeks of age. To calculate this number, the researchers used a dissector/fractionators stereological technique. In different litters, cardiomyocytes, were isolated from the hearts of the freshly born rats to determined mononucleated/binucleated cardiomyocytes.

This study found that maternal vitamin D deficiencies had no effect of the number of cardiomyocytes, cardiomyocyte area, or the proportion of mononucleated/binucleated cardiomyocytes in the three day old rates. However, in the rats that were four weeks of age, maternal vitamin D deficiency caused an increase in the volume of the left ventricle that caused an increase in the number of cardiomyocyte and size and the proportion of mononucleated cardiomyocytes.

This study concluded that when organisms in the fetal stages are exposed to a lack of vitamin D in utero and in early life, they are more likely to mature later and enhance the growth of cardiomyocytes in the left ventricle. These side effects may lead to disturbances in cardiac functions later in life.

Vitamin D intake based on ethnicity, BMI and age
A study conducted by Theresa School in Camden, New Jersey, used 2251 low-income, minority volunteers as her research population. Theresa discovered that the total intake of vitamin D fluctuated from subject to subject based on ethnicity, BMI, and age.

This study found that subjects in the minority of the populations: African-Americans, Hispanics and Puerto Ricans, and for women who were consistently overweight or obese, the intake of vitamin D was significantly lower than for Caucasian women and women in the normal weight range. Further into the study, it is noted that women who ingested less vitamin D throughout their pregnancies gave birth to children with significantly lower birth weights, than women who had adequate amounts of vitamin D in their diets.

This issue is increasingly of interest for medical doctors in high-risk populations, because if the infant born is at a low or unhealthy weight due to deficiencies in vitamin D, many medical issues can arise from this. The more normal a women’s vitamin D intake is, the more normal her child’s weight will be.

Vitamin D deficiency: Mothers in the Middle East
Vitamin D deficiency in mothers and their infants that are breastfed throughout the Middle East is becoming an increasingly more important health issue. The effect of combining maternal and newborn vitamin D supplementation was tested on breastfed infants. A number of healthy breastfeeding mothers as well as their infants were prescribed different amounts of vitamin D supplements. The supplementation of vitamin D in both the mother and child’s vitamin D intake had a positive effect on the child.

A study done by scientists in Iran was designed to examine the relationship between serum concentrations of 25-hydrocyvitamin D in maternal blood and maternal vitamin D deficiencies. Each birth was a typical delivery, and after the delivery blood was collected from both the mother and the newborn.3

During the wintertime, a deficiency in vitamin D was detected in 86% of the women, and 75% of the newborns, whereas it was 46% of the women and 35% of the newborns during the summer time. Since the sun is our greatest source of vitamin D, it makes sense that this would be the case. The prevalence of such deficiencies in vitamin D is something that must be taken into consideration.