Rickets risk high in south

Researchers are calling for full government funding of vitamin D and a change of health guidelines after a new study revealed South Island women and their babies are at high risk of deficiency.

The University of Otago study recruited 126 women through Dunedin’s Queen Mary Maternity Centre from 2011 to 2013. The study, published in Nutrients yesterday, found 65 per cent of mothers and 76 per cent of infants had vitamin D deficiency, with evidence of rickets in three infants.

Vitamin D is essential for foetal bone health, growth, and dental health, and a lack of it is associated with an increased risk of rickets in childhood, which causes soft bones and increases the risk of fractures and deformities.

The body produces the vitamin when the skin is exposed to UVB rays from the sun. But in the South Island especially, the sun might not produce enough UVB rays in winter for the body to produce vitamin D. The vitamin can also be found in food. Breast milk did not contain vitamin D while formula is fortified with it.

Lead author Dr Ben Wheeler, of the Dunedin School of Medicine’s Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, said health policy was not effectively preventing vitamin D deficiency.

The study showed that in the South Island, traditionally lowrisk women and their infants had ‘‘very high’’ rates of deficiency and some infants had ‘‘very severe deficiency’’.

European countries, the United States and Canada offered funded vitamin D to all pregnant women and New Zealand should do the same, Wheeler said. A funded pregnancy formulation including vitamin D, folic acid and iodine would be ideal.