Vitamin D Supplements During Pregnancy Can Lower Your Child's Eczema Risk

Supplementing with vitamin D during pregnancy may lower a newborn's risk of developing eczema.

Atopic eczema in infants up to age one may be considerably reduced by taking vitamin D supplements during pregnancy, suggests a recent study by physicians at the University of Southampton.

In the first year after birth, kids of mothers who took 1000 international units (IU) of vitamin D daily from 14 weeks of pregnancy until delivery were less likely to develop atopic eczema, according to a study that was published in the British Journal of Dermatology. Infants who later drank breastmilk for more than a month may more clearly see the effect.

Chronic inflammatory atopic eczema may adversely affect patients, their families, and the medical system. Over the past few decades, atopic eczema has become more prevalent globally, with an estimated one in six children between the ages of one and five suffering from it.

The first randomized, controlled trial to show evidence of a decreased risk of atopic eczema in infants of mothers who took vitamin D supplements during pregnancy is the University of Southampton Medical Research Council Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre and NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre study. In the trial, which included more than 700 pregnant women, 352 took the supplements from 14 weeks until delivery whereas 351 received a placebo.

Professor Keith Godfrey oversaw the eczema research, which was a component of the UK Maternal Vitamin D Osteoporosis Study (MAVIDOS). Dr. Sarah El-Heis served as the paper's first author.

Our goal was to determine whether supplementing with 1000 IU of Vitamin D (cholecalciferol) during pregnancy would lower the incidence of atopic eczema in newborns, according to Dr. El-Heis. Additionally, we sought to determine if breastfeeding had any impact on this.

Our findings supported suggestions that vitamin D supplements be taken regularly during pregnancy since babies of women who received supplements had a decreased risk of developing atopic eczema at 12 months.

We discovered no effect at 24 and 48 months, which indicates that other postnatal factors may become more significant beyond infancy or that the newborns themselves may also need to be supplemented during the postnatal period for a sustained benefit.

According to a recent MAVIDOS study, taking a vitamin D supplement when pregnant had a lasting positive impact on the child's bone density at age four.

We are aware that vitamin D can have an impact on our skin's proteins and immune system, said Professor Godfrey. We were curious to see if pregnant women taking vitamin D supplements would affect the likelihood that their unborn child will develop atopic eczema.

"Our results demonstrated a beneficial effect, which was more pronounced in breastfed infants. This could be a result of prenatal supplements raising the quantity of vitamin D in breast milk.

reference:

Maternal antenatal vitamin D supplementation and offspring risk of atopic eczema in the first 4 years of life: evidence from a randomized controlled trial” by Sarah El-Heis, Stefania D’Angelo, Elizabeth M. Curtis, Eugene Healy, Rebecca J. Moon, Sarah R. Crozier, Hazel Inskip, Cyrus Cooper, Nicholas C. Harvey, Keith M. Godfrey and the MAVIDOS Trial Group, 28 June 2022, British Journal of Dermatology.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON