Most European infants get vitamin D supplements, vs only 1 in 50 in US – June 2013

Use of vitamin D supplements during infancy in an international feeding trial.

Public Health Nutr. 2013 Jun 24:1-13.
Lehtonen E, Ormisson A, Nucci A, Cuthbertson D, Sorkio S, Hyytinen M, Alahuhta K, Berseth C, Salonen M, Taback S, Franciscus M, González-Frutos T, E Korhonen T, L Lawson M, J Becker D, P Krischer J, Knip M, M Virtanen S suvi.virtanen at thl.fi ; for the TRIGR Investigators.
Nutrition Unit, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Mannerheimintie 164a, FIN00300, Helsinki, Finland.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the use of vitamin D supplements during infancy among the participants in an international infant feeding trial.

DESIGN: Longitudinal study.

SETTING: Information about vitamin D supplementation was collected through a validated FFQ at the age of 2 weeks and monthly between the ages of 1 month and 6 months.

SUBJECTS: Infants (n 2159) with a biological family member affected by type 1 diabetes and with increased human leucocyte antigen-conferred susceptibility to type 1 diabetes from twelve European countries, the USA, Canada and Australia.

RESULTS: Daily use of vitamin D supplements was common during the first 6 months of life in Northern and Central Europe (>80 % of the infants), with somewhat lower rates observed in Southern Europe (>60 %). In Canada, vitamin D supplementation was more common among exclusively breast-fed than other infants (e.g. 71 % v. 44 % at 6 months of age). Less than 2 % of infants in the USA and Australia received any vitamin D supplementation. Higher gestational age, older maternal age and longer maternal education were study-wide associated with greater use of vitamin D supplements.

CONCLUSIONS: Most of the infants received vitamin D supplements during the first 6 months of life in the European countries, whereas in Canada only half and in the USA and Australia very few were given supplementation.

PMID: 23795865

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Note: US FDA requires some vitamin D in Infant formula

But apparently the amount of vitamin D has not been increased to the IoM standards of 2010
Infant formula 40 to 100 IU of vitamin D per 100K Calories
FDA

Since need 100K calories per kg, which is 454 K calories per lb
A 10 lb baby getting 4540 K calories of formula would get 182 to 454 IU of vitamin D
Every 2-oz. of Similac Advance contains 60 IU of vitamin D
Infant formula in Ireland has only 52 IU of vitamin D per 100 ml (PDF attached at bottom of this page)

Note: Very little vitamin D in breast milk nowadays

• 6000 IU may be needed to get vitamin D in breast milk – systematic review March 2013
• Only about 10 percent of breastfed infants get even the minimum recommended vitamin D – April 2010

See also VitaminDWiki

• Overview of Rickets and Vitamin D
• All items in Infant-Child 854 items
• Breastfed infants: 90 percent had less than 20 ng of vitamin D, formula-fed: 15 percent – May 2013
• Third study found that Infants needed 1600 IU of vitamin D – JAMA RCT May 2013
• Rickets cured for 3 months with 10,000 IU per kg vitamin D (600,000 IU max) – Sept 2012
• Infants in France and Finland need 1000 IU of vitamin D, but apparently infants in US need only 400 - 2013
• Overview Deficiency of vitamin D has the following chart - showing how very few infants get even the minimum recommended amount of vitamin D