There are many studies that are carried out during pregnancy to know what is the most appropriate and what is most inappropriate to ensure that future babies have the best possible health.
We are all clear that pregnant women have to take folic acid during the first months and iodine throughout the pregnancy, even taking iron at the end of it if the gynecologist considers it appropriate.
Now, in addition, it seems that it might be interesting for mothers to also take vitamin D supplements because it has been observed that those who have a deficit of this vitamin could have children with a worse speech development and, the curious thing is that it is likely that many women have deficits because nature did not plan to work indoors, to move indoors and, when it is sunny, we put 2 million factor creams so that the sun's rays bounced off the skin.
To reach this conclusion researchers from the University of Western Australia conducted a study in which they wanted to find out what was the relationship between the concentration of vitamin D in the mother during pregnancy and the emotional development, behavior and speech of children.
To do the study, they took a sample of 743 women whose vitamin D levels were measured in the 18th week of pregnancy. Once they were born their children evaluated the variables related to behavior and emotions at the age of 2, 5, 8, 10, 14 and 17 years. With regard to language, they observed development at 5 and 10 years of age.
Results of the study
After observing the results of the study, the researchers concluded that there are no significant differences between levels of vitamin D at birth and emotional development or differences between the behaviors of one and other children.
However, when assessing language development, after several analyzes crossing various variables that could skew the information, they observed that the risk of a woman with low vitamin D levels (<46 nmol / L) had children with speech difficulties was significantly older (twice as difficult) to women with correct vitamin D levels (> 70 nmol / L).
Vitamin D levels in women are decreasing year by year
According to the authors of the study, one of the reasons for doing the study and trying to know to what extent low levels of vitamin D can affect future children is that the levels of vitamin D in women (and the population in general, of course) they were already suspected of being low at the beginning of the study and that have continued to decline steadily in the last 20 years.
The reasons, as I mentioned at the beginning, are those related to our habits and customs. The best way to make our body's vitamin D rise is that the sun, or rather, the ultraviolet rays of sunlight touch our skin. This used to happen frequently because the children lived in the parks, the young people spent the day in the street, the adults made purchases near the house and went shopping on foot and there was more free time in general to leave the house.
Now we live indoors, both day and night. We leave work and get in the car, on the bus or on the train, and thus we hardly have the light of day and in summer, when the sun goes down, we are encrusted with factors above 8 (a cream with factor 8 it already inhibits up to 95% of the production of vitamin D in the skin) so we are barely generating vitamin D. The levels go down and our bodies, prepared to capture sun and convert their "influence" on this vitamin, live without it, because the one that comes from food is rather little and in the end insufficient.
Should pregnant women take supplements?
The question at the end of the day is whether pregnant women should take supplements to avoid the effects of this deficit, to which the answer is a "depends."
The most logical thing is to know before pregnancy if there is such a deficit, to alleviate it with supplements and / or with a "walk more and use the car less". If this is not done, it should be done during pregnancy, to know if there is such a deficit and if so supplement with vitamin D. In any case, the researchers have not commented on it and for the moment they only say that with new studies they can Make concrete decisions.
I, just in case, tell you what they say in the US, where the AAP (American Pediatric Association) advises giving supplements of 200 IU / day of vitamin D to newborns, especially if they breastfeed (because artificial milk is already going enriched with vitamin D, the industry knows that our customs have changed in a short space of time) and what they say in Canada, where the Canadian Pediatric Society recommends that pregnant or lactating women take 2000 IU / day. Now, Canada is not Spain, so supplementation is quite logical: less sun, worse levels of vitamin D.
In our case, since we have enough sun, the recommendation is clear: all to the street.
