This week the American Academy of Pediatrics doubled the amount of vitamin D it recommends for babies and older children:
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is doubling the amount of vitamin D it recommends for infants, children and adolescents. The new clinical report Prevention of Rickets and Vitamin D Deficiency in Infants, Children, and Adolescents recommends all children receive 400 IU a day of vitamin D, beginning in the first few days of life. The previous recommendation, issued in 2003, called for 200 IU per day beginning in the first two months of life.
Our primary source of vitamin D has always been the sun. But our current lifestyle, which involves limited sun exposure and use of sunscreen, has resulted in lower vitamin D levels in some mothers and babies. It's been said for some time that the highest risk mothers and babies are those who are exclusively breastfeeding, darker skinned, and living in northern climates.
The AAP states that "dietary sources of vitamin D are limited, and it is difficulty to determine a safe amount of sunlight exposure to synthesize vitamin D in a given individual." Kellymom's page on vitamin D discusses some of the research on that topic.
One popular misconception is that breastmilk is "deficient" in Vitamin D. Renata, a dietician and blogger points out that breastmilk, like other foods, "wasn't designed to be the primary source of vitamin D. The sun was."
I was asked recently about whether increasing a mother's intake a vitamin D can increase the amount of vitamin D in breastmilk. I passed along one recent study which investigated the effect of increasing maternal intake on levels of vitamin D in breastmilk. Kellymom's page on vitamin D also discusses past studies in which increasing maternal intake of vitamin D increased breastmilk levels, but notes "babies were 'designed' to get only part of their vitamin D from breastmilk and the remainder from sun exposure."
What did your pediatrican recommend, and what did you do about vitamin D?
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