Maternal Serum 25-Hydroxy vitamin D and Measures of Newborn Weight

Background: Pregnant women in India have been shown to have up to 84 percent prevalence of Vitamin D deficiency which correlated significantly with birth weight of their newborn. Mothers with suboptimal vitamin D status have offsprings with reduced intrauterine and postnatal skeletal development. Aim&Objective:: Vitamin D through its effect on immune function and surveillance plays a role beyond calcium and bone metabolism on the health status of both mother and her fetus. The observations linking low maternal Vitamin D levels to low birth weight are important as it is associated with later life chronic disease. Adequate vitamin D status appears to be relevant to health at all ages, and even in prenatal life. Methodology: Ethical committee approval and consent of participants obtained 80 mothers who delivered low birth weight babies were enrolled for the study.. Their vitamin D levels were estimated by HPLC method. Results: Out of 80 participants only 8(10%) had sufficient vit D levels whereas 34(42%) were deficient and 38(47.5%) were insufficient as per NIH guidelines. Conclusions: In this study it was concluded that majority of subjects were vitamin D deficient with pregnancy outcome as low birth weight newborns.