Today, pregnant women – and the rest of us – learned that pregnant women with the lowest vitamin D levels had infants that were six times more likely to get the most common cause of viral pneumonia over the first year of their life.

Mirjam E. Belderbos, et al Cord Blood Vitamin D Deficiency is Associated With Respiratory Syncytial Virus Bronchiolitis. Pediatrics, May 11, 2011, (doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-3054)
As I write this, the paper is not yet indexed in PubMed but I found some evidence it was rushed to publication (percentages of women using vitamin D supplements in the next to last row of Table 1 on page 1516 are reversed). However, what I liked was the authors intimation that current recommendations of 600 IU/day for pregnant women by the National Academies (the Food and Nutrition Board) are woefully inadequate. A number of studies exist showing vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for infantile pneumonia, but this was a prospective study of vitamin D levels, a type of study that is as close to a randomized controlled trial as you can get, while we wait.

Cevallos M. Vitamin D might be associated with risk of lung infection in infants. Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2011.

The National Academies says that 600 IU/day is all pregnant women need and that 5,000 IU/day is dangerous. However, vitamin D scientists take an average of 5,000 IU/day.
Mittelstaedt M Scientists taking vitamin D in droves Jul. 22, 2010
We all have a choice to make, while we wait.

John Cannell, MD

Many fish oil supplements on the market and fish contain mercury. Yet these essential fatty acids are critical to fetal development, particularity brain development. Make sure if you are eating fish it is wild Alaskan Salmon. If you are taking a fish oil supplement make sure it is pure. There are two ways to assure this.

1) Make sure it is Pharmaceutical Quality.

2) Make sure it has gone through a double or triple distillation process to assure purity.

Christiane Northrup, M.D., a board-certified ob/gyn, is a visionary pioneer, beloved authority in women’s health and wellness, and the author of the ground breaking New York Times bestsellers including the newly revised Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause. Her third book, Mother-Daughter Wisdom, was voted Amazon’s #1 book of the 2005 (in two categories). Her latest books, The Secret Pleasures of Menopause and The Secret Pleasures of Menopause Playbook, teach how to experience joy, pleasure, prosperity, fulfillment, and vibrant health.

76% of pregnant mothers are severely vitamin D deficient, causing widespread vitamin D deficiencies in their unborn children, which predisposes them to type 1 diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis andschizophrenia later in life. 81% of the children born to these mothers were deficient.