Biochemical indices of nutritional status in maternal, cord, and early neonatal blood

Abstract

The nutritional status of 556 infants born in good health was measured by selected biochemical parameters in maternal venous blood, in mixed arteriovenous cord blood at delivery, and in infant's capillary blood collected at 5 days. The determinations indicating nutritional status were: Hb, hematocrit, protein, cholesterol, triglycerides, vitamins A, C, E, and folic acid, iron, calcium and magnesium. In maternal venous blood, a significant number of women were found to be deficient; 3.4% had Hb below 9.5 g/dl; 6.1% had hematocrit less than 30%; 4.0% had total protein below 5.5 g/dl; 7.0% had vitamin C below 0.20 mg/dl; 3.0% were deficient in iron (less than 40 microgram/dl), 3.6% in folic acid (less than 2.0 ng/ml) and 5.2% in calcium (less than 7.5 mg/dl). Significant correlations were more frequent between maternal and cord blood than in other comparisons. An influence of parity and maternal age was more evident for vitamin C in cord blood than in maternal venous blood. Iron in maternal and cord blood decreased in relation to parity.

Factors affecting serum vitamin a levels in matched maternal-cord pairs

“…In our study, maternal age and parity did not significantly affect the vitamin A levels in either the mother or her newborn; similar to the findings reported by Voebecky et al 12 A positive effect of maternal vitamin A supplementation on both maternal and cord vitamin A levels was demonstrated by Ibrahim et al 13 We found higher cord vitamin A levels in mothers who had attended ANC clinics. Our study protocol did not include a formal vitamin A supplementation to mothers during pregnancy, but it was assumed that mothers who had attended the ANC clinics even once had been given some dietary advice on the consumption of We found lower vitamin A levels in preterm infant, similar to a study by Shah et al 14 A prior study showed a significant effect of maternal toxemia on vitamin A levels in mother and her newborn; 15 our study on the other hand showed no significant difference.…”

Ascorbic Acid Concentrations in Umbilical Cord Veins and Arteries of Preterm and Term Newborns

“…The observation that term UCV plas ma AA levels are dependent on maternal ve nous plasma AA levels ( fig. 2b) is supported by previously reported data [28,[35][36][37]. Sev eral addition factors such as, glucose competi tion with AA for membrane transport [17], iron overload [38][39][40], maternal age, parity and nutrition strongly influences the AA sta tus of the newborn [28].…”

“…The reason for higher preterm maternal AA levels is unclear; however, it has been reported that AA levels may be influenced by numerous factors in cluding social class, season of the year, smok ing, multivitamin intake, etc. [24,28], The nutritional habits and behavior of pregnant women predisposes them to the possibility of nutritional deficiencies of their newborns, but the lack of dietary history on these mothers precluded assigning a possible causal role to maternal nutrition. Studies have shown that iron overloading affects the rate of AA turn over throughout the body [29][30][31][32], In this study, the serum level of iron in maternal blood and in cord blood was not determined.…”

Risk and Benefit of Low Fat Intake in Childhood

“…Nutrient intake was analysed with the help of food composition tables using computer programs devel oped and validated in our previous studies [7,13,15]. The results are presented as means and standard devia tions in an appropriate weight unit, per day, per kilo gram of body weight or per 1,000 cal.…”

“…Serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels were determined by the stan dardized methods fully described elsewhere [7,15]. The other biochemical techniques used for nutritional assessment are not presented here.…”