For you, all breastfeeding mothers, please read this news for your baby’s shake. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is doubling the amount of vitamin D, from 200 IU per day to 400 IU per day, beginning in the first two months of lice. This recommendation also extends to all other babies, children, and adolescents. “We are doubling the recommended amount of vitamin D children need each day because evidence has shown this could have life-long health benefits,” Dr. Frank Greer, chairman of the AAP Committee on Nutrition, said.

This doubling recommendation is especially important for breastfed baby according to Dr. Carol Wagner, member of the AAP Section on Breastfeeding Executive Committee and who co-authored the report with Geer. “Because of vitamin D deficiencies in maternal diet, which affect the vitamin D in a mother’s milk, it is important that breastfed infants receive supplements of vitamin D,” she explained.

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Good news for breastfeeding and fish lover mom! A study that was conducted by the researchers from Harvard University said that omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and compounds in breast milk aid infant development. The research, which looked at 25,446 children born to mothers participating in a Danish study between 1997 and 2002, found that children whose mothers ate the most fish during pregnancy (about 2 ounces a day on average) were more likely to have better motor and cognitive skills. Children who were breast-fed for longer periods of time also scored better, especially at 18 months. Breast milk also contains omega-3 fatty acids. The benefit of fish consumption was similar among infants breast-fed for shorter or longer durations. But, U.S. women are advised to limit their fish intake to two servings a week, because some fish contain high traces of mercury. Cod, plaice, salmon, herring, and mackerel are good low-mercury fish choices to consume.  

SOURCE: Harvard Medical School, news release, September 2008

Are you pregnant and worried about the risks of amniocentesis and other available tests for chromosomal disorders such as Down syndrome? There is a good news for you! The safer test may be on the horizon! This new technique, as described in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, takes advantage of fetal DNA in pregnant woman’s blood. The technique that is developed by Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital scans for fetal aneuploidy, an abnormality in the number of fetal chromosomes.

Down syndrome is a type of aneuploidy that arises from extra copy of chromosome 21. Based on that, the researchers used samples from 12 women with aneuploid pregnancies and 6 with normal pregnancies. They found that women from the first group had more chromosome 21 fragments in their blood than the women with normal pregnancies. This test has the potential to detect other forms of aneuploidy too and could lead to earlier diagnosis of fetal aneuploidy because the fetal DNA shows up in maternal blood early in pregnancy.

SOURCE: Stanford University, news release, Oct. 6, 2008