Study explores how pre- and postnatal B-12 vitamins improve breast milk vitamin B-12 levels

Infants and kids want nutritional vitamins, together with vitamin B-12, to assist their brains and our bodies develop and develop. Infants get B-12 from their moms and might have low ranges of B-12 if their moms had low vitamin ranges throughout being pregnant and breastfeeding. The vitamin B-12 ranges of infants strongly depend upon maternal ranges. Adequacy of vitamin B-12 in breast milk is especially vital for infants throughout the first six months of life when breastfeeding is extremely really useful. Even after the primary six months of life, breast milk could proceed to be a important supply of vitamin B-12 for infants.

Pregnant and lactating girls are at exceptionally excessive danger for vitamin B-12 deficiency as a result of elevated dietary calls for as they supply the micronutrient for themselves and their infants. Many individuals obtain the mandatory B-12 the physique wants from animal-source meals. Nonetheless, in international locations with low consumption of animal-source diets, mom’s and toddler’s deficiency in vitamin B-12 is a severe public well being problem.

In resource-limited settings the place maternal undernutrition is pervasive, researchers sought to know the optimum timing and dosage of B-12 dietary supplements throughout being pregnant and lactation.

A brand new examine led by Mason Assistant Professor within the Faculty of Public Well being Dongqing Wang discovered that pregnant women who took excessive doses of oral vitamin B-12 dietary supplements earlier than supply skilled short-term advantages on the degrees of B-12 of their breast milk. Nonetheless, girls who took excessive doses of vitamin B-12 dietary supplements throughout lactation skilled these advantages for an extended time frame.

“Understanding the impacts of prenatal and postnatal vitamin B-12 dietary supplements on the extent of B-12 in breast milk is essential to design efficient dietary interventions to guard moms and infants from vitamin B-12 deficiencies,” stated Wang, who was the principal investigator. “Our findings underscore the significance of prenatal nutritional vitamins for short-term advantages in breast milk and postnatal nutritional vitamins for extra sustained impacts on B-12 adequacy in breast milk; each prenatal and postnatal dietary supplements assist wholesome development and growth within the child.”

The examine additionally discovered that the impact of the prenatal vitamin B-12 supplement diminished when used along with the postnatal complement. Likewise, the impact of the postnatal vitamin B-12 complement diminished when used along with the prenatal complement.

“It seems that there was a sure plateau within the impact when prenatal and postnatal dietary supplements have been used collectively,” stated Wang. “The plateau may imply that both prenatal or postnatal nutritional vitamins may appropriate maternal vitamin B-12 deficiency, however the plateau doesn’t preclude the necessity for mixed prenatal and postnatal dietary supplements by way of being pregnant and breastfeeding to maintain maternal B-12 ranges in populations with excessive ranges of dietary inadequacy.”

“The effects of prenatal and postnatal high-dose vitamin B-12 supplementation on human milk vitamin B-12: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in Tanzania” was printed within the American Journal of Scientific Diet in November 2023.