Effect of maternal vitamin A supplementation on retinol concentration in colostrum

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the effect of vitamin A supplementation on the retinol concentration in colostrum under fasting and postprandial conditions. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study, with before and after assessments, conducted with 33 patients treated at a public maternity hospital. Blood and colostrum samples were collected under fasting conditions in the immediate postpartum period. A second colostrum collection occurred two hours after the first meal of the day, at which time a mega dose of 200,000 IU of retinyl palmitate was administered. On the following day, the colostrum was collected again under fasting and postprandial conditions. Serum and colostrum retinol concentrations were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Results: The serum retinol concentration was 37.3 (16.8-62.2) g/dL, indicating adequate nutritional status. The colostrum retinol concentration before supplementation was 46.8 (29.7-158.9) g/dL in fasting and 67.3 (31.1-148.7) g/dL in postprandial condition (p < 0.05), showing an increase of 43.8%. After supplementation, the values were 89.5 (32.9-264.2) g/dL and 102.7 (37.3-378.3) g/dL in fasting and postprandial conditions, respectively (p < 0.05), representing an increase of 14.7%. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that maternal supplementation with high doses of vitamin A in postpartum resulted in a significant increase of the retinol concentration in colostrum under fasting conditions, with an even greater increase after a meal.

Retinol status and associated factors in mother–newborn pairs

“…In the present study, despite the average concentration of retinol in the maternal serum indicating adequacy and being compatible with the literature , a substantial part of the maternal population presented VAD, highlighting an important risk to the health of women and their infants. To evaluate the VA status in neonates, there is a predominant number of studies in the literature that use <0.7 µmol L −1 as the cut‐off point to indicate a low retinol concentration , and this value was also adopted as the cut‐off point in the present study.…”