Perspectives
Vitamin D
Mother-child vitamin D deficiency: an international perspective
1 Center for Global Child Health, Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
2 Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA
Correspondence to:
Dr Adekunle Dawodu, Center for Global Child Health, Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC 5041, Cincinnati, OH 45229-3039, USA; adekunle.dawodu@cchmc.org
Accepted 31 May 2007
Perspective on the paper by Dijkstra et al (see page 750)
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Rickets is often considered a 19th century disease. However, despite the availability of vitamin D and demonstration of its efficacy in preventing rickets, vitamin D deficiency rickets still exists as a public health problem with significant morbidity in the Middle East1–5 and in many Asian countries,6 7 and has been reported with increasing prevalence in minority groups in North America8–10 and in immigrant populations in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.11 In many countries, there are reports of a high prevalence of subclinical vitamin D deficiency in children and adolescents12 13 and rickets may merely represent the tip of the iceberg.
With more studies, there are reports from many countries of a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in women of child-bearing age14–20 and during pregnancy21–24 and in nursing mothers,25–27 with likely adverse consequences for women, the fetus and growing infants and children.21 What seemed to be a rare entity has
Relevant Articles
- High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in newborn infants of high-risk mothers
- S H Dijkstra, A van Beek, J W Janssen, L H M de Vleeschouwer, W A Huysman, and E L T van den Akker
Arch. Dis. Child. 2007 92: 750-753.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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