Effect of Oral Zinc Application during Pregnancy

Abstract

The beneficial effects of the oral application of zinc aspartate in pregnancy is investigated in a randomly selected study group of 179 patients and a control group of 345 patients. This study confirms the prophylactic effectiveness of zinc replacement in reducing the overall complication rate for both mother and fetus and in particular for large-for-date and small-for-date infants. The therapy is well tolerated and accepted by the patients and causes no side effects. The results are in line with those of other working groups reporting on zinc as an important element with protective effects on fetal growth and development in pregnancy.

Zinc: health effects and research priorities for the 1990s.

“…Spontaneous abortions were less frequent among women who received zinc supplements before the 22nd week of gestation compared to women who were untreated before the 22nd week (p< 0.05). Consistent with the reported benefits of zinc supplements were results of an incompletely controlled study by Kynast and Saling (430) which found improved pregnancy outcome in women given zinc. In contrast a randomized controlled intervention trial from Britain was "negative" (431).…”

Zinc in Human Nutrition

“…Oral Zn supplements (20 mg/d from the 12th week onwards) have been shown to reduce the overall complication rate for both mother and fetus, in particular small-or large-forgestational-age infants (Kynast & Saling, 1986). However, by 12 weeks the development of most of the fetal tissues and organs is complete and subsequent Zn deprivation will have an adverse effect on fetal growth rather than a teratogenic effect.…”

Toxicological Profile for Zinc

“…However, the significance of these results cannot be determined because very few details were given regarding the study protocol, reproductive histories, and the nutritional status of the women. Other human studies have found no developmental effects in the newborns of mothers consuming 0.3 mg zinc/kg/day as zinc sulfate (Mahomed et al 1989) or zinc citrate (Simmer et al 1991) or 0.06 mg zinc/kg/day as zinc aspartate (Kynast and Saling 1986) during the last two trimesters. There has been a suggestion that increased serum zinc levels in pregnant women may be associated with an increase in neural tube defects (McMichael et al 1994), but others have failed to confirm this association (Hambidge et al 1993).…”

“…Clinical symptoms suggestive of neurological effects have been reported by humans following inhalation exposure (Rohrs 1957;Sturgis et al 1927;Wilde 1975) or oral exposure (Anonymous 1983;Murphy 1970;Potter 1981) to zinc. There were studies that examined reproductive and developmental effects in women orally exposed to zinc during their pregnancies (Kynast and Saling 1986;Mahomed et al 1989;Simmer et al 1991).…”