Preterm infants more likely to have vitamin D levels below 20 ng

Vitamin D status among preterm and full-term infants at birth

Pediatric Research (2014) 75, 75–80 doi:10.1038/pr.2013.174

Heather H. Burris, Linda J. Van Marter, Thomas F. McElrath, Patrik Tabatabai, Augusto A. Litonjua, Scott T. Weiss & Helen Christou

Background:

Risk factors for maternal vitamin D deficiency and preterm birth overlap, but the distribution of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels among preterm infants is not known. We aimed to determine the associations between 25(OH)D levels and gestational age.

Methods:

We measured umbilical cord plasma levels of 25(OH)D from 471 infants born at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. We used generalized estimating equations to determine whether preterm (<37 wks’ gestation) or very preterm (<32 wks’ gestation) infants had greater odds of having 25(OH)D levels below 20 ng/ml than more mature infants. We adjusted for potential confounding by season of birth, maternal age, race, marital status, and singleton or multiple gestation.

Results:

Mean cord plasma 25(OH)D level was 34.0 ng/ml (range: 4.1–95.3 and SD: 14.1). Infants born before 32 wks’ gestation had increased odds of having 25(OH)D levels below 20 ng/ml in unadjusted (odds ratio (OR): 2.2; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1–4.3) and adjusted models (OR: 2.4; 95% CI: 1.2–5.3) as compared with more mature infants.

Conclusion:

Infants born in <32 wks’ gestation are at higher risk than more mature infants for low 25(OH)D levels. Further investigation of the relationships between low 25(OH)D levels and preterm birth and its sequelae is thus warranted.

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In the United States, very preterm delivery (<32 wk) is more than twice as common among black infants (3.9%) compared with white infants (1.6%) (33).

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See also VitaminDWiki

• Pregnancy category listing and custom searches

• Chance of preterm birth is strongly associated with low vitamin D – Feb 2015

• Search VitaminDWiki for Pre-term 482 items as of Feb 2014

• Overview Pregnancy and vitamin D has the following summary

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Pre-term birth costs $51,800 (vs. very little cost of vitamin D to prevent one: 10% of births are pre-term)

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